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An elevator engineering company that is a customer of Horner Industrial manufactured an elevator system for a popular theme park ride known as the Tower of Terror. There are four of these rides across the World: Florida, California, Tokyo, and Paris. Our customer continues to maintain and maintenance these rides. This ride, based on the TV show The Twilight Zone, is described by the theme park’s website: “Enter the rickety, elevator-style lift, strap yourself in and prepare to discover what lies beyond the darkest corner of your imagination. Shriek in terror as you’re suddenly propelled up and down the abandoned shaft—unexpectedly dropping and rising—as you hear the sound of cables snapping and metal clanging overhead. Will you make it back to the real world… or will you become a permanent resident of the Twilight Zone?”
This ride has a complex mechanical system that uses two giant induction motors to accelerate riders up and down, reaching a maximum speed of about 40 mph. One motor is positioned above each elevator shaft in a mechanical room at the top of the tower, and each one weighs nearly 60 metric tons and can generate 2,000 HP. Each motor is connected to two cable drums in series, and there is 1 solenoid brake on the end of each drum for a total of 4 brakes per elevator.
Two steel cables are wound onto the first drum, and these extend down through the floor where they connect to the top of the elevator car, which travels along rails that are fixed to the walls of the shaft. A single cable is more than strong enough to support the full weight of a car along with a fully loaded vehicle, but two cables are used for redundancy. Two additional steel cables are wound onto the second drum in the opposite direction, and they are attached to a counterweight that is used to offset the weight of the elevator car. The counterweight travels along its own set of rails inside the shaft, and it weighs about as much as a single elevator car with an empty ride vehicle so that the motor only needs to supply enough power to raise and lower the weight of the passengers. Two more cables extend off the bottom of the counterweight, and they run around a compensation pulley at the bottom of the shaft before connecting to the bottom of the elevator car. This closed loop allows the motor to pull the elevator car downwards, resulting in acceleration that is faster than a freefall. When the motor spins in one direction, the car is pulled up from above, and when it spins in the opposite direction, the car is pulled down from below. The result is an intense experience unlike any other elevator where riders experience complete weightlessness one moment and are pushed into their seats the next.
Horner has been sent to Florida, California and Paris to do the alignment of the motor to the driven equipment. Yes! Mark Rosebrock (Horner Field Service) went to Paris! Recently, we are in contact with the customer to discuss preventative maintenance procedures and troubleshooting on these motors.