After 22 years, the construction of the elevator has been completed with its trial operations just started.
The construction of controversial Three Gorges Dam was completed in 2014 and the elevator was a welcome addition to the project.
The trials are focused mainly on forging the operability of the new ship lift. An engineering marvel in its own right, the ship lift, which is the biggest of its kind, can raise a ship that weighs up to 3000 tons.
According to the China Three Gorges Corporation, the use of this colossal elevator will downsize the time taken to traverse the lock system that sits alongside the dam, which can take three hours, for up to minus 40 minutes. Some of the bigger ships weighing more than 3000 tons, however, will have no choice but to use the lock system.
This mammoth of an elevator will be lifting ships straight up along the towering 175 meter or 574 foot wall of the dam. The ship is contained in a 120 meter or 394 foot long chamber that contains water that's 3.5 meters or 11 feet deep. The total width of the chamber is 18 meters or 59 feet. The total weight of the elevator, including the chamber, the water, and all the lifting contraptions it uses is more than 15,500 tons.
A team of Chinese and German engineers from Krebs and Kiefer, are responsible for the construction. The designs took a while to be approved by the Chinese government, which it did in 1992, and revisions were being made along as the construction is taking place.
The original plan was cast aside due to likelihood of the elevator becoming unstable since the design included a mechanism that will suspend the lifting chamber on steel cables. So for the meantime, while new plans were being thought out, the project went to a halt.
In 2003, Krebs and Kiefer introduced a mechanism that uses gears instead of cable reassuring the Chinese authorities and construction recommenced on the elevator in 2008.
