How to include an elevator in a n-storey building model • floodam.building

Before starting

We assume that you have read and successfully model the both the single-storey building and the two-storey buildings in our vignettes From the architect’s plan to the input file of floodam.building and Input file for a n-storey building. If you have not yet done it, now it is the best time to do so.

Including an elevator in your n-storey building

The library floodam.building count on several elementary components to help you include levators in your model. The following table summarizes them:

	units	french label	category
door_elevator_hydraulic	€/u	portes palières_hydraulic	building
door_elevator_traction	€/u	portes palières_traction	building
elevator_cab_hydraulic	€/u	cabine ascenseur_hydraulic	building
elevator_cab_traction	€/u	cabine ascenseur_traction	building
elevator_machine_room_hydraulic	€/u	local des machines_hydraulic	building
elevator_machine_room_traction	€/u	local des machines_traction	building
elevator_pit_hydraulic	€/u	cuvette ascenseur_hydraulic	building
elevator_pit_traction	€/u	cuvette ascenseur_traction	building
elevator_shaft_hydraulic	€/u	gaine d’ascenseur_hydraulic	building
elevator_shaft_traction	€/u	gaine d’ascenseur_traction	building

As you can see, floodam.building includes 2 types of elevators: hydraulic and traction elevators. As you can see, we have group all the different components in each kind of elevator in the same elementary components so it is easier to include them in your model. We have divided all the components of elevators in 5 elementary components:

pit: space below the ground floor that is used to support the elevator and the equipment that hangs from it.
cabin: compartment receiving persons and/or loads to be transported which moves in the hoistway/shaft of an elevator.
machine room: control room of the elevator
shaft: vertical space bounded by a pit, walls and ceiling, in which an elevator moves. It contains various components such as rails, etc
door: landing doors to secure the closure of the shaft.

To include an elevator in your model, you need to follow the following steps:

Choose a the type of elevator present in your building (hydraulic or traction) and make sure that all the components that you will use belong to the same type.
Locate the pit in the appropriate storey in your building (usually the lowest reached by the elevator). In your building file, you should lower the floor of this room. If you do not know the actual depth in your building, here are values by default that you can use, depending on the type of elevator:

hydraulic elevator pit bottom: -0.2m
traction elevator pit bottom: -1.2m

In your building file, the door communicating the shaft (the room where you are placing your elevator) and the rest of the storey should always be door_elevator_hydraulic or door_elevator_traction in each of the storeys in your building accesible by elevator
In your furniture file, you should place:

One unit of elevator_pit_x in the room(s) where you located the bottom of your elevator(s)
One unit of elevator_cab_x in one of the storeys accesible by the elevator. Use one cab per elevator
One unit of elevator_machine_room_x in the room(s) used to host the elevator(s) machines
One unit of elevator_shaft_x per storey in each elevator room(s)

You can check the building and furniture files of an example here