Elevator Systems of the Eiffel Tower Part 5

Counterweight: 6,600 sin 5435' 5,380

Power: 156 p.s.i. 2 (pistons) 1,341.5 sq. in. (piston area) ------------------------------------------ 13 (ratio) 32,196 37,576 lb.

------ ---------- Excess to overcome friction 13,856 lb.

_The Edoux System_

Negative effect

Unbalanced weight of plungers (necessary to raise full lower car and weight of cables on lower side) 42,330 lb.

Live load: 60 persons @150 lb. 9,000 ------ -- 51,330 lb.

Positive effect

Power: 227.5 p.s.i. 2 (plungers) 124 sq. in. (plunger area) 56,420 lb.

---------- Excess to overcome friction 5,090 lb.

Footnotes:

[1] Translated from Jean A. Keim, _La Tour Eiffel_, Paris, 1950.

[2] The foundation footings exerted a pressure on the earth of about 200 pounds per square foot, roughly one-sixth that of the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument, then the highest structure in the world.

[3] A type of elevator known as the "teagle" was in use in some multistory English factories by about 1835. From its description, this elevator appears to have been primarily for the use of pa.s.sengers, but it unquestionably carried freight as well. The machine shown in figure 7 had, with the exception of a car safety, all the features of later systems driven from line shafting--counterweight, control from the car, and reversal by straight and crossed belts.

[4] The Otis safety, of which a modified form is still used, consisted essentially of a leaf wagon spring, on the car frame, kept strained by the tension of the hoisting cables. If these gave way, the spring, released, drove dogs into continuous racks on the vertical guides, holding the car or platform in place.

[5] A notable exception was the elevator in the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument.

Installed in 1880 for raising materials during the structure's final period of erection and afterwards converted to pa.s.senger service, it was for many years the highest-rise elevator in the world (about 500 feet), and was certainly among the slowest, having a speed of 50 feet per minute.

[6] Today, although not limited by the machinery, speeds are set at a maximum of about 1,400 feet per minute. If higher speeds were used, an impractically long express run would be necessary for starting and stopping in order to prevent an acceleration so rapid as to be uncomfortable to pa.s.sengers and a strain on the equipment.

[7] Two machines, by Otis, in the Demarest Building, Fifth Avenue and 33d Street, New York. They were in use for over 30 years.

[8] Although the eventually successful application of electric power to the elevator did not occur until 1904, and therefore goes beyond the chronological scope of this discussion, it was of such importance insofar as current practice is concerned as to be worthy of brief mention. In that year the first gearless traction machine was installed by Otis in a Chicago theatre. As the name implies, the cables were not wrapped on a drum but pa.s.sed, from the car, over a grooved sheave directly on the motor shaft, the other ends being attached to the counterweights. The result was a system of beautiful simplicity, capable of any rise and speed with no proportionate increase in the number or size of its parts, and free from any possibility of car or weights being drawn into the machinery. This system is still the only one used for rises of over 100 feet or so. By the time of its introduction, motor controls had been improved to the point of complete practicability.

[9] Mechanical transmission of power by wire rope was a well developed practice at this time, involving in many instances high powers and distances up to a mile. To attempt this system in the Eiffel Tower, crowded with structural work, machinery and people, was another matter.

[10] According to Otis Elevator Company, the final price, because of extras, was $30,000.

[11] In _Pall Mall Gazette_, as quoted in _The Engineering and Building Record and the Sanitary Engineer_, May 25, 1889, vol. 19, p. 345.

[12] From speech at annual summer meeting of Inst.i.tution of Mechanical Engineers, Paris, 1889. Quoted in _Engineering_, July 5, 1889, vol. 48, p.

18.

[13] Located near the Tower, built for the Paris fair of 1878.

[14] Improved oil-well drilling techniques were influential in the intense but short burst of popularity enjoyed by direct plunger systems in the United States between 1899 and 1910. In New York, many such systems of 200-foot rise, and one of 380 feet, were installed.

[15] An obvious question arises here: What prevents a plunger 200 or 300 feet long and no more than 16 inches in diameter from buckling under its compressive loading? The answer is simply that most of this length is not in compression but in tension. The Edoux rams, when fully extended, virtually hung from the upper car, sustained by the weight of 500 feet of cable on the other side of the sheaves. As the upper car descended this effect diminished, but as the rams moved back into the cylinders their unsupported length was correspondingly reduced.

[16] M. A. Ansaloni, "The Lifts in the Eiffel Tower," quoted in _Engineering_, July 5, 1889, vol. 48, p. 23. The strength of steel when drawn into wire is increased tremendously. Breaking stresses of 140,000 p.s.i. were not particularly high at the time. Special cables with breaking stresses of up to 370,000 p.s.i. were available.