Elevator - History, Modern Elevators
An elevator is an enclosed car that moves in a vertical shaft between the multi-story floors of a building carrying passengers or freight. All elevators are based on the principle of the counterweight, and modern elevators also use geared, electric motors and a system of cables and pulleys to propel them. The world's most often used means of mechanical transportation, it is also the safest. The elevator has played a crucial role in the development of the high-rise or skyscraper and is largely responsible for how our cities look today. It has become an indispensable factor of modern urban life.
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Lifting loads by mechanical means goes back at least to the Romans who used primitive hoists operated by human, animal, or water power during their ambitious building projects. An elevator employing a counter-weight is said to have been built in the seventeenth century by a Frenchman named Velayer, and it was also in that country that a passenger elevator was built in 1743 at the Versailles Palace…
Today's passenger elevators are not fundamentally different from the Otis original. Practically all are electrically propelled and are lifted between two guide rails by steel cables that loop over a pulley device called a sheave at the top of the elevator shaft. They still employ the counterweight principle. The safety mechanism, called the overspeed governor, is an improved version of the …
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