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Review below is translated text from ISR: http://en.isr.at/
The book "Ropeway Technology" by Gottfried Hofmann is a unique work, for the development of which the author has spent more than 11,300 working hours. He has succeeded in presenting the knowledge and experience of a top-class ropeway technician in a practical way. The entry into the cable car technology is thus made much easier for anyone who is interested. The book may claim to belong to the indispensable literature for the introduction and training of employees in cableway technology, but also experienced cable workers find in the textbook many valuable tips that make their job easier. In any
if this century work of ropeway literature could be all those who are active in the field of cable car technology.
Gottfried Hofmann, Garaventa's Head of Development for many years, used his retirement to write down his experiences in a comprehensive ropeway book. It is written in English, has 834 pages and contains around 500 sketches and photographs. Table of Contents is 15 pages.
Intro by: Josef Nejez
With "Ropeway Technology" there is a technical and textbook that has not yet existed in this detailed and practical way. The aim of the author was to create a comprehensive reference work that combines the theory and practice of ropeway technology and makes it accessible to any interested engineer in an understandable form.
The specialist offers the book a lot of background knowledge, in particular with regard to comparison and limits of the various ropeway systems. The emphasis is on the aerial tramways and funiculars; Regarding the details of monocable ropeways, the author refers to the dissertation of Artur Doppelmayr, published as a book "Impetus for the Functional Efficiency of Circulating Monocable Ropeways".
The book is divided into ten sections:
• A principles of rope calculation
• B Specific cable car technical calculations
• C components of the cable cars
• D eviction and salvage
• E Characteristics and comparisons of cableway systems
• F cable car safety
• G History of the cable cars
• H literature review
• J photo documentation
In the following, an attempt is made to highlight essential topics of the sections mentioned. What they all have in common is the consistently high quality of the graphical representations and, wherever possible and sensible, the specification of practical calculation examples that facilitate the understanding of the formulas and their application.
Principles of rope calculation
In this section you will find everything that is necessary for the understanding and execution of the rope calculation for cable cars. Starting with the theory of the catenary and the parabola and the comparison of these two lines continues with the calculation of fixed anchorage ropes and other areas of the rope tensioning forces such as friction of the suspension ropes on the support shoes, type and arrangement of clamping devices, Spannwegberechnung, rope friction to drive pulleys, pull rope rollover u , v. m. The conclusion of Section A is a compilation of system-relevant parameters in the form of a checklist, which should be processed before the final compilation of the ropes and the ropeway plan.
Specific cable car technical calculations
This section deals with system-specific topics such as lacing tensions on drives with multi-grooved drive pulleys, tension weight loss, rope tension track, transverse and longitudinal vibration of the vehicles, gauge, rope vibrations and Fahrdia-grams.
Components of the cable cars
The main part of this section are the chapters on ropes: history and development, rope constructions, basics of rope mechanics, rope connections and end fittings, rope whirl, rope damage and rope control. Other sections deal with the areas of powertrains, vehicles and track equipment for the different ropeway systems.
Evacuation and recovery
This comparatively short section deals with the basic requirements for evacuation and recovery, the most frequent mountain concepts and the necessary recovery equipment, as well as considerations for calculating and executing mountain railways.
Characteristics and comparisons of cableway systems
In this section, the author's approximately 30 years of experience as project engineer and head of the development department comes first to Von Roll and then to Doppelmayr / Garaventa. After a general consideration of the topics of ride comfort and availability, he discusses the characteristic features and properties, separated according to the following systems:
• fixed-grip chairlifts,
• detachable chairlifts,
• one-cable cabin orbits
• Two cable cabin orbits
• 3S lifts,
• Funitels,
• aerial tramways,
• self-propelled cable cars,
• Funifor
• funiculars.
For each of these ropeway systems, the author provides information according to the following scheme:
• degree of standardization,
• length profile,
Preferred technical concept,
• Flow rate,
• Rope field lengths,
• Train length
• Vehicle capacity,
• driving speed, getting in and out,
• ride comfort,
• specifics of the system,
•Wind,
•Icing,
• evacuation and recovery,
• Energy costs
• investment costs,
• operating and maintenance costs,
•Availability,
• automation.
Each of these system-specific lists concludes with a paragraph on preferred areas of application and on the historical development of the cableway system in question.
On the basis of the aforementioned characteristics, the author makes various comparisons within a cable car system and between the cable car systems and summarizes the results in extensive tables - a "vademecum" for every ropeway planner and decision maker in the field of cable car construction.
Cable car safety
• accident statistics with tabular overview of the heavy cable car accidents, separated according to the cable car systems;
• General assessment of cableway safety, including comparison with aviation, rail and road transport;
• risk and safety analysis;
• Overview of the residual risks in cable cars.
In the context of this section, there is also a view, in the opinion of the reviewer, of an excellent opinion on the "eternal" discussion "suspension rope brakes
History of the cable cars
This section contains a chronological list of milestones of the ropeway construction with important technical data of the respective facility.
A list organized by cable car system, contains world-record cableway parameters, suitably supplemented with additional technical data and the manufacturer's name of the facility concerned.
This is followed by a concluding chapter describing outstanding classic and historic cable cars with photos and technical data.
Literature Review
Of course, in a textbook like this a review of the literature should not be missing, but what Gottfried Hofmann has compiled here on well-prepared information is extraordinary. At the beginning, he presents a selection of proven ropeways experts who have continuously contributed to the ropeway literature:
• Prof. Dr. Gabor Oplatka (ETH Zurich),
• Prof. Dr. O. Zweifel (ETH Zurich),
• Prof. Dr. H. Wettstein (ETH Zurich),
• Prof. Dr. J. Nejez (TU Graz),
• Prof. Dr. E. Engel (Vienna University of Technology),
• Dr. MR. Gassmann (BAV)
The literature review is divided into two chapters. The first contains relevant ropeway books on almost four pages, the second on 20 pages articles in journals, studies, etc. This second chapter is thematically divided into 22 subchapters - an invaluable aid for anyone who wants to get an overview of a special field of cable car transport
Various cable car photos
The last section of Gottfried Hofmann's book is a collection of ropeway photos on just under 50 pages, offering the reader an overview of the various ropeway systems.
To avoid disappointment, it should again be noted that the textbook "Ropeway Technology" is written in English and therefore adequate language skills in technical English are a prerequisite for understanding the work. This should not be a problem especially for engineers of the younger generation.
The book can be purchased at Garaventa AG, contact@garaventa.com
