Cableway Station Support with Routed Ascent Passage
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Cableway stations face challenges in providing an ascent for maintenance and inspection that is both sufficiently distant from the motion path of transport vehicles to ensure safety and not excessively steep, given the constraints of space and heavy equipment handling.
Innovation Solution
A station design with a support structure featuring a passage for the ascent, allowing it to be routed through the support column or between columns, enabling access while maintaining a safe distance and manageable steepness, and potentially incorporating a bridge for extended access.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the ascent is located at a sufficient distance from the motion path of transport vehicles to ensure safety, then safety is improved, but the steepness of the ascent becomes excessively great making it difficult to handle heavy equipment
Solution Approach 1:
The invention moves the ascent from a lateral position (perpendicular to the cableway) to a longitudinal position (parallel to the cableway direction). This dimensional change allows the ascent to be routed through the support structure along the direction of vehicle motion, achieving both safety distance and manageable steepness simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The ascent is routed through the support structure itself, nesting the access path within the existing structural elements. The ascent passes through the support column or between columns, utilizing the space already defined by the support structure to achieve the desired positioning.
2Ease of operation
If the ascent is located close to the motion path of transport vehicles, then the steepness is reduced for easier equipment handling, but the safety distance is insufficient increasing collision risk
Solution Approach 1:
The invention resolves this contradiction by changing the spatial dimension of the ascent routing from lateral to longitudinal. By running the ascent parallel to the vehicle motion path through the support structure, it maintains adequate safety clearance while keeping the ascent angle at a manageable level for equipment transport.
3Strength
If the support structure is designed without a passage, then the structural integrity is maintained, but access for maintenance and inspection becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The ascent is nested within the support structure by routing it through the support column or between columns. This integration allows maintenance access without requiring external attachments that could compromise structural integrity, as the passage utilizes the existing structural geometry.
Solution Approach 2:
The support structure serves multiple functions: it provides structural support for the cableway components and simultaneously houses the ascent passage for maintenance access. This multi-functionality eliminates the need for separate access structures that would add complexity or compromise integrity.
Data Source
AI summary
A cable railway installation has an endless conveying cable extending between terminal stations. Transport vehicles, such as chairs or gondolas, are coupleable to the conveying cable. In the two terminal stations the cable is guided over headwheels and, in optionally provided intermediate stations, it is guided over diverting pulleys, diverting rollers or the like. The transport vehicles entering the terminal stations are uncoupled from the conveying cable, conveyed through the stations by guide tires and then coupled to the conveying cable for exiting the stations. A load bearing structure, which carries components such as the headwheels, diverting pulleys and rollers, and the guide tires, is borne by at least one support disposed centrally between the paths of motion of the transport vehicles. An ascent leads up to the load bearing structure. The support carrying the load bearing structure is formed with a through passage through which the ascent is routed.