Although ski lift is a necessary facility for enjoying the ski as the popular winter sports, it unusually causes accidents in its use and could have caused a tragic disaster. The fall accident for the ski lift in demonstrates the lack of safety awareness in our society, since the ski resort still kept open except the concerned ski course while being protested by guests. In this report, the cause of fall accident for the ski lifter through examination of site and laboratory was examinated, and some suggestions of preventing from the safety concerns about this case are shown. At the moment accident, it is presumed that the lift chair no. 32, which was keeping the distance of 27 mm with both the preceding and the following chairs, was engaged with the joint of variant diameters and irregular sectional shape. While both pressure and friction force were weak, the lift chair may have broken away from the wire rope instantly by the operational vibration and 14 degree inclination, and may have slipped along the wire whose diameter was decreased from 41.61 mm to 38 mm gradually, ending up with colliding against the lift chair no. 33. Since the total load of chair no. 32 at that moment is supposed to be about 445 kgf (three male passengers=240 kgf, chair=205 kgf) and its collision force is in proportion to the square of its speed, presumably it was sufficiently able to break the chair no. 33 off from the wire. Based on the case of this accident, the following measures are proposed to prevent the fall accident of ski lift. (1) As a conclusion from the accident, the current regulations and safety inspection standards for ski lift only prescribe the nominal diameter of wire rope joint. This makes an error of assuming all sectional shapes are uniformed, while actual sections are very irregular. Therefore the real pressure of grip differs from the test. Consequently, it is necessary to enact provisions for measuring and regulating the irregularity rate of wire rope section. (2) Because the pressure of grip only generates the friction force toward the direction of lift chair movement. It cannot resist against the direction of load. Therefore, the overloaded chair may be very dangerous. For this reason, it is required to develop a method to test the load. In addition, the structure of lift needs to be reinforced. (3) Since the ski lift is used by many passengers simultaneously, it always has a potential to cause a massive disaster. Nevertheless, the safety inspection and maintenance are not executed well because most products are imported from overseas. The more practical inspection based on prevention and safety engineering is required rather than a formal inspection.


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    Title :

    Cause analysis and discussion for fall accident of ski lift


    Additional title:

    Ursachenanalyse und Diskussion eines Skiliftunfalls


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2008


    Size :

    5 Seiten, 8 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 6 Quellen



    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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