It is curious that the appearance of modern cities is largely shaped not only by the imagination of architects, but also by a technical device, the full value of which we realize only when it breaks down. If the elevator had never been invented, it is unlikely that houses higher than four or five floors would be built.

Obviously, we will never know who and when first realized that a heavy load can not only be dragged or rolled to a height, but also lifted with the help of simple devices. And we can guess what these ancient prototypes of the lifting mechanism, which later received the name “elevator” (from the English to lift, “to lift”), were like by turning to the customs of some Papuan tribes, which are still not affected by the civilization of machines. According to ethnographers, they bury the dead on the tops of trees, using wicker platforms raised with the help of counterweights.

The ancestor of the elevator, like other lifting mechanisms, is the lever, known to people since ancient times. A lever similar to a well crane, as well as systems of cables and counterweights, were used in Ancient Egypt during the construction of the pyramids. The first mention of such devices dates back to approximately 2600 BC. e. With their help, stone blocks weighing up to 100 kg were lifted.

The treatise “Ten Books on Architecture” by the famous Roman architect Vitruvius mentions a lifting machine built by the Greek scientist Archimedes in 236 BC. e. And already in the 1st century. n. e. The simplest lifts have become widespread. During excavations of the city of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the remains of a unit were discovered that lifted cooked dishes from the kitchen to the dining room on the second floor. In Rome, lifting platforms carried gladiators and animals to the arena of the Colosseum. Under Emperor Nero, who was fond of theatrical productions, such platforms lifted actors and scenery onto the stage. The description of a lift with a cabin suspended on a hemp cable dates back to around the same time. All such mechanisms were driven by the muscular power of animals or slaves.

By the 6th century refers to the appearance of a lift in the Sinai monastery in Egypt. It was a wicker cage on several cables, driven by a wheel that was turned by donkeys. In China and India, similar devices were used to lift water from a river, sometimes using people pedaling as the driving force. In Europe, the first elevators appeared much later, mainly in palaces and large monasteries, as well as in mines and quarries for lifting extracted minerals to the surface. The device that has survived to this day in the French abbey of Mont Saint-Michel was built in the 12th century. It consists of a wooden sled on which loads were lifted along a stone ramp using a winch.

While the elevator is moving

A short story about the concept of a new product, project or service is called an Elevator Pitch. It is believed that it should be short enough that it can be fully told during the elevator ride, i.e. it should take a maximum of 2 minutes. Of course, this applies exclusively to modern elevators: the very first, very slow ones, on the contrary, were conducive to verbosity.

15th century elevator Illustration from the book “Military Fortifications” by Konrad Kaiser.

Lift-ramp at the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel.

Almost all medieval elevators, with the exception of mine elevators, which lowered and raised miners, were freight elevators. The first passenger platform elevator in European history was constructed in 1743 at the Palace of Versailles. The device was intended for King Louis XV so that he could secretly visit his favorite, whose apartment was located on the floor above. However, since the elevator moved with the help of a servant, there was still no secret.

In Russia, the first passenger elevator appeared in 1795. The outstanding inventor Ivan Kulibin designed a “self-lifting chair” in the Winter Palace, which slowly ran between the first floor and the royal apartments. Special nuts, moving along two vertically mounted lead screws, raised and lowered the platform with the seat. The mechanism was operated by one person.

Five years later, a steam engine was used for the first time to drive an elevator. This happened at one of the American coal mines, the owner of which calculated that such a design would speed up the rise of coal to the surface, and therefore increase production efficiency. Over the next decades, steam elevators appeared in industrial enterprises, first in England, then in other countries.

A significant disadvantage of such an elevator was that its operation required constant operation of a steam engine, and it also made a lot of noise. These circumstances did not allow the use of steam elevators in residential buildings. The problem was partly solved in 1845, when the American William Thomson developed a hydraulically driven elevator. Here, too, it would not have been possible without a steam engine, which maintained the pressure of the liquid, but it could be placed at a distance, and water could be supplied to the elevator through a pipeline. After the English engineer William Armstrong invented a hydraulic accumulator to increase and ensure constant water pressure, passenger hydraulic elevators began to be installed in hotels and public buildings, and then in respectable residential buildings.

Newfangled phaeton. 18th century engraving

Descent into a salt mine in Wieliczka, Poland. 1869

At first, the elevator was far from the most reliable device; sometimes the cables broke and the cabin fell, which is why many people preferred to walk up the stairs. What made it absolutely safe was the invention of the American engineer Elisha Graves Otis, who is sometimes mistakenly called the inventor of the elevator. In 1852, he proposed not to attach the cable directly to the cabin, but to use an elastic steel spring plate and set gear rails along the walls of the shaft. The weight of even an empty platform caused the spring to bend, and it passed freely between the rails. When the cable broke, the spring straightened out, its ends stuck in the teeth of the rails and prevented the fall.

Otis called his invention a safety elevator and, together with his sons, opened a small company producing elevators (now the Otis Elevator Company is the world leader in the production of elevator equipment). In 1857, the first passenger elevator, the Otis Elevator, was installed in a five-story department store on Broadway.

He took up to five people “on board” and carried them at a speed of 20 cm per second. Two years later, the company designed a screw elevator operating on the same principle as Kulibin’s “self-lifting chair.” This system turned out to be too expensive and inconvenient, and the rise was very slow, so the project was abandoned.

Drawing of the first elevator by E. Otis. 1861

Elevators on the first class deck of the Olympic passenger liner. 1911

Meanwhile, competitors were not asleep. In the second half of the 19th century. The era of skyscrapers began in the USA, and at first contractors preferred hydraulic elevators without cables to Otis elevators; a piston running in a long cylinder pushed the cabin upward under the pressure of water. Such elevators moved much faster than steam elevators. But when high-rise buildings jumped beyond the 20-story mark, such a system had to be abandoned; a hole too deep to accommodate the hydraulic cylinder had to be dug under the foundation.

Some time later, a hydraulic elevator was designed with a cylinder placed horizontally: the piston pulled a rope through a system of pulleys, raising the cabin. At the 1867 World Exhibition in Paris, a new hydraulic elevator developed by engineer Leon Eddu was demonstrated using a plunger instead of a piston. Detractors tried to prove the unsuitability of such elevators for high-rise buildings, but at the 1878 exhibition Eddu presented a plunger elevator with a lifting height of 128.5 m. Later, an elevator with a similar device was installed on the Eiffel Tower.

It is unknown how long the confrontation between steam and hydraulic elevators would have continued if in 1880 the company of the German engineer Werner von Siemens had not built the world's first electric elevator with a rack and pinion mechanism in the city of Mannheim. It rose to a height of 20 m in 10 s. However, it took almost a decade for the new product to capture the market. In 1889, the Otis Elevator Company was one of the first to begin mass production of electric elevators.

Further improvements concerned mainly control systems and automation of elevator maintenance. Once upon a time, its operation required a whole staff of personnel: an engineer operating the steam engine, an elevator operator in the cabin, floor attendants who closed and opened the shaft doors.

W. von Siemens.

At the beginning of the 20th century. They already made do with an elevator operator in the cabin and one electrician for several elevators in the building. And in 1924, Otis Elevator Company specialists created a system for calling elevators by pressing a button on the floor, which, together with automatic doors invented by engineer Houghton in 1926, made it possible to fully automate elevators and simplify their maintenance.

It seemed that everything possible in this area had already been invented and it was impossible to invent something fundamentally new, but at the end of the century a real breakthrough occurred. In 1996, the Finnish company KONE began producing MonoSpace elevators with EcoDisc gearless drive, which do not require a machine room, and a few years later, MaxiSpace elevators without a counterweight.

Otis Elevator and Schincller companies replaced metal cables with polyurethane belts in the design of their elevators, which significantly reduced noise levels. The movement speed and maximum lifting capacity of elevators are increasing year by year. Perhaps after some time this device will have a completely new function: from the beginning of the 21st century. Work is underway to create a space elevator to deliver cargo to the orbital station. It's hard to believe that it all started with an ordinary basket, which was pulled up using a rope thrown over a beam.

Up together

The world's largest elevators were developed by Mitsubishi Electric, which installed five elevator cars in the 41-story Umeda Hankyu Building office skyscraper in Osaka. Each elevator can easily accommodate 80 people, which is almost like three school classes with their own class teachers. The total weight that the elevator can lift is 5250 kg! Elevators are also suitable for those who are afraid of being cramped and stuffy: their ceilings are very high, and the walls are glass and allow you to admire the views of the city as you ascend.

In addition to the number buttons, there are emergency call and door hold buttons on each instrument panel in the elevator.

The elevator is a unique invention that is now used by most of the world's population. This lifting device has become very firmly established in everyday life. So strong that most people no longer think about who invented the elevator and when. In the article we will talk about this in detail.

Who first invented the elevator and when did it happen?

To get an answer to this question, we need to travel to Ancient Rome. It was there, in the town of Herculaneum, that the first prototype of the elevator appeared. Since the city was located at the foot of Vesuvius, it soon fell victim to the volcano. At the excavations of one house, archaeologists, who know exactly who invented the elevator, found perfectly preserved parts of a lift used to lift ready-made dishes from the kitchen to the dining room. The found elements date back to 79 AD. e. It was at this time that Vesuvius erupted.

However, in some sources there are written references to earlier prototypes of lifts. Thus, an architect from Rome named Vitruvius indicated in his treatise that he ordered the development of the elevator design to Archimedes from Syracuse. The manuscript dates back to 236 BC. e.

France

In 1743, a passenger elevator was built in the Versailles Palace of Louis XV. The device was created for only one purpose: the monarch could use it without much effort to ascend to the upper apartments, where his mistress lived.

Who invented the elevator in Russia?

In 1795 in St. Petersburg, in the corridors of the Winter Palace, one could see the corpulent hulk A. Bezborodko. The Chancellor was in an unusual state of exaltation and excitement. Later it turned out that Bezborodko “took off” in a “self-lifting chair” to the royal apartment. It was precisely this that was the prototype of the device to which this article is devoted.

This raises a completely logical question: “Who invented the elevator in Russia?” This was the outstanding inventor Ivan Kulibin. Its lifting mechanism was launched with the help of one or two people: along which they were installed vertically, special nuts moved, lifting the platform with the cabin. This device became a favorite pastime of palace servants and high dignitaries. The Kulibin lift was the first passenger elevator built in the Russian Empire.

America and England

In 1800, a steam engine was first used as a drive for a lift. This happened in America at one of the mines where coal was mined. Its owner quickly realized that the use of a steam engine would significantly increase the speed of coal lifting and significantly increase production efficiency. From that time on, the era of market operation of elevators began. In economic terms, using lifts has become profitable. Already in 1835, industrial enterprises in England began to use steam freight elevators.

Hydraulic lift

But the new devices had one serious drawback. It was necessary to regularly maintain the operation of the steam engine. This did not create any particular problems in mines where the elevator was constantly used. But in ordinary enterprises, where the lift was used sporadically, for this reason a lot of inconveniences arose. And steam elevators were not installed in residential buildings at all because of their excessive noise. The problem was partly solved in 1845. American inventor William Thompson invented the first hydraulic lift. Its design also had shortcomings, since it required a source of pressure in the liquid. For this, a steam engine was again used. Only now it could be located remotely from the elevator installation site. And the liquid itself was supplied under high pressure through a pipeline. At that time, a number of cities already used centralized water supply systems. But due to the low pressure, which did not exceed 0.38 MPa, they were unsuitable for Thompson lifts.

Improving the design

In 1851, William Armstrong (an engineer) came up with a hydraulic accumulator. This device increased and ensured constant pressure when water was supplied to the cylinder. The design of the battery was simple. A vertical cylinder (plunger diameter 40-45 centimeters) supported a steel box filled with gravel or stones. In fact, Armstrong's elevator contained all the key components of a modern hydraulic elevator. This is a hydraulic accumulator, a multiplier, and a plunger-type hydraulic cylinder. European engineers set themselves only one task. They decided to improve the design of lifts with a direct-acting plunger hydraulic cylinder. The first such elevator appeared in 1849 in England. It was installed at the Osmaston Manor Hotel. And by the mid-60s, all major hotels in England began to use such a hydraulic passenger lift.

Safe mode of transport

And here we come to the answer to the question: “Who invented the elevator in the 18th century?” Otis Elisha Graves is the name of this engineer. It was he who invented the safest lift in the world. During his life, the American changed many professions: he built carriages, worked in a sawmill, was a laborer, and served in a furniture factory. It was here that he was asked to make a lift to deliver lumber to the second floor. While working on this project, Graves came up with his invention.

Before Otis, the cable was attached directly to the cabin, and Elisha secured it with an elastic steel spring plate. The inventor installed gear rails on the sides of the lift. Even under the weight of the empty platform, the spring itself easily bent and passed between them. If the rope broke, the spring straightened and stuck its ends in the teeth of the rails, preventing the cabin from falling. Whoever invented the elevator before Elisha could not even dream of such a security system.

"Otis Elevator"

Graves soon opened his own company, Otis Elevator. He called the lifts he sold the safest lifts in the world. In 1854, to increase sales of his products, Otis came up with a publicity stunt. In New York, in one of the exhibition halls with a high dome (12 meters), the inventor placed a lifting platform between two supports. At the top of the structure stood Otis' assistant with a long sword in his hand. Graves himself, wearing a top hat and tuxedo, was on a platform among boxes and barrels. When the elevator, using a steam engine, rose to the very top, the assistant, at Elisha’s command, cut off the rope. The platform fell down, but after a couple of meters, with a terrible grinding sound, the automation switched on and stopped it. The audience applauded the man who invented the elevator. Elisha Graves Otis took off his top hat and bowed in all directions.

Electric lift

Time passed, and elevator designs improved. In 1887, A. Miles from America received a patent for an electric lift. The new design had a system for locking the shaft doors in case there was no cabin on the floor.

In 1889, Otis Elevator installed the first elevator of this type in one of the New York skyscrapers. From that moment on, electric lifts began to spread throughout all cities of the world. Further inventions in the field of elevators concerned mainly automation of maintenance and control systems. To operate the very first lifts, a dense staff was required (attendants on the floors, an elevator operator in the cabin, a steam engine engineer). But by the beginning of the 20th century, only one elevator operator and one electrician were needed for several shafts in the building. Another innovation was the introduction of uniforms. Now the elevator operators wearing it became key personnel figures in every hotel of that time. In 1924, the Otis Elevator Company created a system for calling elevators by pressing a button. And two years later, engineer Houghton invented automatic doors. The emerging devices made it possible to automate lifts and significantly simplify their maintenance.

Conclusion

So, now you know who invented the elevator and when. We have tracked the evolution of this device from antiquity to the present day. What's next? How do engineers see the elevator of the future? It is absolutely certain that it will be fast, automatic and safe. Or maybe even cosmic!

Who is who in the world of discoveries and inventions Sitnikov Vitaly Pavlovich

Who invented the elevator?

Who invented the elevator?

The elevator was not invented by just one person; the idea evolved over a long period of time. Elevator-type mechanisms have been in use for centuries.

The ancient Greeks lifted objects using pulleys and winches. A pulley is a wheel with a groove along which a rope slides. A winch is a mechanism with a wider wheel or drum to which the end of a rope is attached. When the drum is turned by the handle, the rope is wound or unwound from the drum. When a rope is passed through a pulley, it can lift or lower a load.

In the 17th century, the “flying chair” was invented. It was designed to lift people to the upper floors of buildings and was driven by a system of weights and pulleys. The chair and its mechanism were located outside the building. However, the “flying chair” has not found widespread use.

In the first half of the 19th century, the elevator already existed, but was used mainly for lifting goods. Later, a steam engine was used to turn the drums of these lifts.

People's greatest fear was that the ropes holding the elevator would break and the elevator would fall down. But when Elisha Otis invented safety features that prevent accidents, elevators became very popular. At the same time, hydraulic lifts, which use high-pressure fluid, began to be used to raise and lower cabins.

The electric elevator we still use today was invented by German engineer Werner von Siemens.

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Elevator Elevator (from the English lift - to raise), a stationary lift, usually of intermittent action with vertical movement of the cabin or platform along rigid guides installed in the shaft. Prototypes of L. existed in Ancient Rome as early as the 1st century. BC e., mentions of L. date back to the 6th century.

Who invented the ball? No one knows who was the first to play ball, but it was back in prehistoric times. Every civilization, from primitive times to the present day, has played games using different types of ball. Some ancient peoples wove a ball from reeds, others

Who invented the elevator? The elevator was not invented by just one person, but rather the idea evolved over a long period of time. Elevator-type mechanisms have been in use for centuries. The ancient Greeks lifted objects using pulleys and winches.