These types of escalators place strong demand on the structure’s required strength and stiffness. Giant KONE has developed an escalator type for exactly this purpose. From the project’s beginning, it utilized RFEM to contrast and compare various escalator designs. Ultimately, it decided to utilize a spacious quadruple single truss and further utilize RFEM to optimize the system, including the truss height and cross-sections.
The final design calculation results fully met the various requirements of EN 115 and EN 1993. In addition, the truss’s natural frequency was calculated to ensure tolerable vibrations for passengers walking on the escalator.
Further testing regarding the actual structure stiffness under a passenger load of 104.4 psf showed that the tolerance between the deformation calculated by RFEM and the deformation measured by the test differed by only 8%. The structure’s natural frequency was also substantially close to the measured frequency.
Giant KONE was pleasantly surprised by RFEM’s computing speed. According to Giant KONE, RFEM offers further advantages, including the quick modeling workflow and high-accuracy calculations. The structure’s future performance can also be researched before the prototype is created, which reduces the number of prototypes and shortens the development cycle. This has reduced development and manufacturing costs, resulting in significant advantages for the company.
| Location | China |
| Design, Structural Engineering, Construction | Giant KONE Elevator Co., Ltd., China www.giantkone.com |
