Offset Guide Wheel Elevator Car Mover Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing multi-car elevator systems face challenges in maintaining the center alignment of motor-driven wheels on vertical track beams, leading to potential lateral motion and steering issues during operation.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a car mover system with a drive wheel and offset guide wheels that engage the lateral sidewalls of the track beam, allowing the drive wheel to rotate while the guide wheels restrict lateral motion, ensuring proper alignment and preventing wheel deviation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If motor-driven wheels are used to propel the elevator car, then the elevator system achieves autonomous operation and modern functionality, but the wheels are prone to lateral motion and steering issues that compromise alignment stability
Solution Approach 1:
Guide wheels are introduced as intermediary elements between the drive wheels and the track beam. These guide wheels engage the lateral sidewalls of the track beam to prevent lateral motion of the drive wheels, thereby maintaining alignment stability while preserving autonomous operation capability
Solution Approach 2:
The wheel assembly is segmented into distinct functional components: drive wheels for propulsion and guide wheels for lateral constraint. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function optimally without interfering with the other, resolving the conflict between autonomous operation and alignment stability
2Stability of the object's composition
If guide wheels are added to restrict lateral motion, then alignment stability is improved, but the device complexity increases due to additional components
Solution Approach 1:
The guide wheels are integrated with the drive wheel assembly through a common mounting structure on the elevator car. This merging approach allows the guide wheels to be added without requiring separate mounting mechanisms, thereby limiting the increase in device complexity while achieving alignment stability
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a car mover, configured for autonomously moving an elevator car along a track beam in a hoistway lane, having: a car mover body; a drive wheel operationally connected a lateral side of the car mover body, and configured to rotate about a drive wheel axis; a first guide wheel operationally connected to the lateral side of the car mover body, wherein the first guide wheel is offset from the drive wheel so that, in operation: the first guide wheel engages a lateral sidewall of the track beam when the drive wheel laterally moves on the track beam, to thereby restrict lateral motion of the drive wheel on the track beam.