Shaft for a winding drum lift. (Photo: © Sautter Lift Components GmbH)
November 2025
Sautter Lift Components has developed a new fibre rope design, which the company will unveil at interlift 2025. The idea is to offer a practical response to the challenges of demographic change.
By Klaus Sautter
The number of people over 67 in Germany will grow to over 20 million by 2030 - about a quarter of the population. The number in need of frail care will increase markedly in pace with this. To keep residential space usable in a generation-friendly manner, about 400,000 buildings will have to be retrofitted with a lift according to the study "Lift poverty: how age-friendly are Germany’s residential buildings". Demographic change, increasing urbanisation and the densification of inner city areas are leading to a considerable increase in the pressure on barrier-free access facilities.
At the same time, building codes, monument protection and water and noise protection regulations are impeding such retrofitting. Shaft pits often cannot be installed due to water protection regulations, certain drive systems are blocked by strict noise protection conditions and exterior lifts are prevented by regulations or monument preservation requirements. Consequently, conventional systems are frequently frustrated in urban centres.
The ideal lift for retrofitting should use the available shaft area almost entirely for the car, only require minimal pit and head heights and yet still meet all safety requirements. In addition, sustainability, resource protection and efficiency are decisive. The solution is a lift without counterweights, machine room and a reduced pit – a third-generation winding drum lift (see page 64).
A central challenge for winding drum lifts is the rope storage. According to EN 81-20, a winding drum may only be wound in one layer – with the disadvantage of large drum diameters or overlong drums that are scarcely feasible in existing buildings (see page 65).
Transfer of multi-layer winding from crane technology proved to be unsuitable since the conditions in lift building are fundamentally different: smaller forces, guided loads and high service life requirements.
Sautter Lift Components has developed a new fibre rope design for this purpose. A fibre rope with plastic sheathing combines high breaking force with a long service life and integrated discard age detection. "It has proven its reliability in over 600,000 trips and for the first time represents a practical solution for multi-layer winding in lift building," the company emphasised.
The second challenge consists in reducing the drive torque by means of a consistent lightweight construction design. Sautter Lift Components relies here on a wood veneer composite (WVC) material, which is used for cars and car frames. The low density reduces the mass by 50 percent compared to conventional designs. WVC simultaneously facilitates great adaptability to different loading cases thanks its variable fibre orientation
As a renewable material, wood improves the ecological footprint through low production and transport costs and simplifies processing and assembly at the building site.
Long-term tests with over two million load cycles and multiple emergency stop tests have confirmed the high endurance limits of the wooden design. Currently, Sautter Lift Components is working on the fire protection conformity assessment according to EN 81-20.
It is the combination of fibre rope for multi-layer winding and the wooden lightweight car for weight reduction that make the third-generation winding drum lift the compact, sustainable and economical overall solution for existing buildings.
As a result, barrier-free access can be created where conventional lift systems cannot be deployed (see left).
The author is an engineer and managing director of Sautter Lift Components.
More informations:slc-liftco.com
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