This project is about building a new mechanism that ensures the safety of wheelchair users going up and down an escalator. This is done by modifying the current escalators bed (upper layer in which we place our foot). The main concern of wheelchair users going upward on an escalator is a small backward force on the wheelchair or instability results in a very bad accident and could flip the wheelchair backward. So usually peoples on the wheelchair grab the handrails tight going upward and downward. This is very risky because if the hands of the percent slip we are looking at some serious damage. Aside from this risk, it is not comfortable on the ride and many public services are not still easily accessible for wheelchair users.

This project solves this problem. This project is about building a new mechanism that ensures the safety of wheelchair users going up and down an escalator by modifying the current escalators bed (upper layer in which we place our foot). Since the main concern of escalators for a wheelchair is buckling, we will give the mechanism anchoring mechanism. Since using a manual attaching and detaching mechanism is very time consuming and is not applicable for places where there are many users of the escalators, I have designed an automatic anchoring bed which works on a spring mechanism. As seen in the figure the bed is made up of many small rectangular rods that have spring in each one of them. The spring goes up and down according to pressure difference exerted on them. Also, the strength of the spring is made to be different on the forward force and backward force. Meaning for escalator going up the backward force of the bed of escalator is very high acting as an anchor for wheels of the wheelchair to prevent it from going backward when moving up. And for escalator going down the forward force of the bed of escalator is very high acting as an anchor for wheels of the wheelchair to prevent it from going forward when moving down. The mechanism will work perfectly as intended and there are no problems that will be caused by using this mechanism.

All the design has been done and all the calculation has been done and it checks out. The next step is building the prototype.

For more information please visit https://www.globalinnovationexchange.org/innovation/escalator-which-ensures-safety-of-wheelchair-users