Elevator Systems for Tall Buildings Part I: Single-Mode Elevator Systems

Tail buildings result largely from the scarcity of land in the centers of towns. Provision of the vertical transportation involves a loss of some useful floor area in these buildings. The main objective of the research reported in this paper is to compare different design arrangements of elevator systems in terms of the floor area they consume, and to point out the implications for the limits to height of tall buildings. The research approach is to formulate models of several types of elevator systems, in which the area of elevator shafts and the useful area (on various floors and in total) are expressed as functions of building's height, inclusive of such parameters as: the base area of a building, duration of the peak period, density of a building's population, the cruise speed of elevators, etc. Solutions are found for the optimal height of buildings, when the objective is to maximize the total useful floor area. This part of the paper presents two simple models: the first is of an all-express system where each elevator serves only one floor, while the second is the familiar system where each elevator serves all floors.