Escalator Engineering

New book offers a comprehensive look at escalators and moving walks, and how to engineer them.

Elevatorbooks.com’s newest offering is another book by Ben Abbaspour, Escalator Engineering. Noting a dearth of books on escalators in general, Abbaspour strove to fill this need on the equipment’s essential role in the growing mass transportation of passengers in airports, metro stations and other public places. He said the material on escalators and moving walks was gathered over the years from various projects on different subjects around the world. He covers the many recent new technologies that have promised an advanced standard for escalator efficiency, energy savings, safety and comfort.

The accessible book is organized into four chapters. In Chapter 1, types of vertical transportation are introduced, and a history of elevators, escalators and skyscrapers is given, followed by a general description of escalators. Chapter 2 delves deep into the engineering of escalator components and certain principles of mechanics related to escalator design. Chapter 3 is devoted to special escalators, including spiral, heavy duty, outdoor and helical. In the final chapter, the design of moving walks is discussed. An appendix concludes the work with useful tables regarding definitions, formulae, steel types, truss bridges and important calculation methods.

Notations and abbreviations are organized into tables at the beginning of the book. Optional sections throughout the text are indicated by an icon to be easily distinguished from those that form the core of the book. They are mostly principles of mechanics (including truss structure, mechanics, vectors, statics of particles and rigid bodies) and may be omitted if the reader is familiar with the subject without prejudicing the understanding of the rest of the text. There are hundreds of graphics and nearly as many equations within its 380 pages.

Author of 2013’s popular Elevator Engineering and that book’s second edition (2016), Abbaspour has been senior engineer at ABBA Engineering in Solana Beach, California, since 2006. He has also been a consultant for Hydranics in Rancho Santa Fe, California, since 2001. Prior to these positions, he served as president of Amlift International Inc. in San Diego, Elevator Equipment Corp. in Los Angeles and Science Laboratories in Tehran, Iran. He has also been chief engineer of Elevator Equipment Co., also in Los Angeles. Some of Abbaspour’s achievements include creating, launching and managing the startup of an elevator company in San Diego; designing, developing, prototyping and launching a new elevator for the U.S. market; launching the “Just In Time” concept and strict purchasing discipline at two plants; and designing and developing an elevator quote program. Abbaspour holds an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering.