Good engineering practices in application of safety standards for elevators

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Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi

Date

2015-11-23

Department

Major/Subject

Mechanical Engineering

Mcode

IA3027

Degree programme

Master’s Programme in Mechanical Engineering

Language

en

Pages

159+2

Series

Abstract

Due to humanitarian, legal and economic grounds, safety is one of the most crucial goals to achieve through the development process of an elevator system. Safety standards are one of the main sources providing design and examination requirements to ensure safe operation of elevators. However, only fulfilling the technical requirements provided by safety standards do not guarantee a safe performance of elevator and additional engineering practices need to be applied throughout elevator’s lifecycle to ensure its safe performance. This study was undertaken to investigate such Good Engineering Practices (GEP) that enhance a proper application of safety standards and consequently elevator system’s safety. Qualitative research methods and more specifically Expert Interview along with Literature Research are the main approach for acquiring valuable information in this study. Primary research phase clarified that GEPs should be applied in almost every phase of an elevator’s lifecycle: Design, Manufacturing, Material Handling, Installation and Maintenance. Loading conditions that an elevator is subjected to during its lifetime, have a great impact on sound performance of the system; therefore, the influence should be taken into account for component and system design. In addition, it was found out that Reliability has a strong relation with Safety since failure of critical components in an elevator system can cause safety issues. Therefore applying design for reliability practices to predict potential failure modes, and take actions already in design process to eliminate them is vital for a proper application of safety standards. From production viewpoint, designers have to possess adequate knowledge on manufacturing capabilities and fabrication processes’ characteristics in order to achieve an efficient design. Furthermore, in order to ensure safety of maintenance and installation technicians, on one hand the factors attributed to installation and maintainability of components should be considered during the design process; on the other hand, precise maintenance/installation instructions should be developed based on component’s design. Lastly, applying even the highest safety margins during the design cannot guarantee safe performance of equipment if necessary evaluation checkpoints are not been placed in necessary milestones to check quality of work or manufactured parts. This issue provokes the need for Quality Control and having Quality Assurance system in the organization.

Description

Supervisor

Ekman, Kalevi

Thesis advisor

Lähteenmäki, Jussi

Keywords

good engineering practices, elevator’s safety, application of safety standards, elevator industry, safety improvement

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