Method for estimating the vibration shape of a 200 m elevator rope with a single sensor

In recent years, skyscraper construction has spread worldwide, and elevators have become increasingly important as a result. In an earthquake, an elevator cannot operate because the elevator ropes resonate with the building sway and swing wildly. To appropriately increase the number of situations in which elevators can be used even in an earthquake, this paper proposes a method of estimating the lateral vibration of elevator ropes excited by an earthquake while car driving. The proposed method estimates the shape of the entire rope using the rope vibration data observed by a single displacement sensor installed near the top or bottom end of the rope. First, the lateral displacement of the rope is observed with a single displacement sensor. Second, a short-time Fourier transform is performed on the obtained vibration data, and the displacement at the observation position for each mode is estimated using the Fourier amplitude spectrum and Fourier phase spectrum. Third, each mode amplitude is calculated from the displacement at the observation position for each mode. Lastly, the rope shape is estimated by adding up the mode shapes generated from each mode amplitude. An analysis validates an estimation of the vibration of a 200 m rope excited by seismic waves.