Just How Tall Can You Build A Skyscraper?

[Aglifter]

Yeah - its more about footprint - worst comes to worst, and I imagine you could always use maglevs to run elevators...

[HTRN]

The linear elevators are going to be the closest things to maglev. While still using conventional contacts to align and guide the cab, it will use a series of magnets up and down the shaft with the motor mounted in each corner to propel the cab up and down. Moar about it.

The nice thing about it, is because the way it's made, you can build into the cab sensors to detect problems with the magnets right into the cab control software, and giving a trouble code if it picks up something wrong.

[Lokidude]

Have been to obligatory business dinner way up in Taipei 101 a few times. Wished the honorable supplier contacts would have just forgot about me so I could wander and wonder at it. The internal design makes really interesting use of the structural elements as design elements. Functional forms fascinate...

That's a hell of a building, ain't it? Somewhere, I've got a whole mess of pictures from when I was there, including 101 and another one.

[skb12172]

Yes it is - Nova did a special on Elevators a coupla months ago. When you have a rep from Otis explaining why elevators can only go so tall and so fast, I tend to take them at their word.

The cable thing means they can't effectively build higher than a certain point. I think the Kalifa towers elevators have six and half miles of cable, weighing nearly 30 tons.

That was a very informative and interesting 53 minutes, HTRN. Thanks for the link.

[evan price]

The limiting factor will be health & safety, fire codes, evacuation plans, etc.
The WTC could have evacuated a lot more people if there had been a way to get them out. When it takes an hour to walk down 120 flights of stairs that's a problem- more so if you are mobility limited.
Tall structures by design limit the speed of egress. Had it not been for the elevator bank system used in the WTC it would not have been feasible from a floorplan standpoint to even build.