Scope of this section: lifts and elevators only — systems serving discrete landings. SERAPID’s wider rigid chain range includes stage platforms, work platforms, push/pull transfer and die handling; those belong in other sections and are deliberately excluded here.

The lift is almost never the difficult part of a project. The difficult part is the pit we cannot dig, the machine room we cannot find space for, the borehole the ground conditions will not accept, or the shaft head that will not carry the load — in a building that in many cases already exists.

SERAPID Lift Systems answers those constraints rather than the load. Rigid Chain Technology pushes the car from below on interlocked steel columns that fold flat and coil into a magazine when retracted. No machine room. No borehole. A shallow pit. The load resolves into the foundations instead of hanging from the structure — and the shaft walls can often be specified significantly lighter as a result.

The lift range behind every page in this section

Lift type Capacity Typical sectors
Goods / freight lifts 1,500 – 25,000 kg Almost every sector here — the workhorse of the range
Truck lifts 10,000 – 60,000 kg Logistics, heavy industry, defence, energy, venues
Car lifts 2,500 – 5,000 kg Residential, mixed-use, automotive, automated parking
Special capacity passenger lifts 450 – 1,250 kg Rail, infrastructure, accessibility retrofit
Cycle lifts Application-specific Stations, mobility hubs, public realm
Bespoke specials No practical limit Nuclear, heritage, defence, anything constrained

Full specifications, series designations and dimensions sit on the product pages. These use case pages explain why a sector specifies them.

What a rigid chain lift changes on a project

Constraint What the technology removes
No space for plant No machine room; drive sits in a shallow pit
Ground conditions or contamination No borehole, no hydraulic fluid
Existing structure cannot take load Load resolves into the foundations, not the shaft head
Restricted pit and headroom Machinery Directive routes need markedly less than EN 81-20
Uneven or shifting loads No differential movement; no compensation system to fail
Continuous or peak-period duty No limit on starts per hour; no heat rejection to remove
Maintenance access is difficult Purely mechanical; minimal maintenance; 1 million cycle life
Full standard compliance impossible Certification routes agreed with Notified Bodies

Two compliance routes, decided at concept

Almost every project in this section resolves to either the Lift Directive 2014/33/EU or the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. The choice turns on whether people ride the lift, how fast it must travel, and how much pit and headroom the building can surrender. Where a building cannot give the clearances EN 81-20 demands, the Machinery Directive route is frequently the only way the lift gets built at all — which is why this decision belongs at concept design, not at tender.

Find your sector

Sector The lift problem it presents
Entertainment & Art Getting scenery, trucks and artworks between street and stage or gallery level
Automotive Industry Moving components, tooling and finished vehicles between plant levels
Aerospace & Space Oversized, high-value components between floors of a manufacturing hall
Nuclear Vertical handling into cells and controlled areas, for a plant-length service life
Defence & Naval Stores and equipment between decks and levels, where volume is scarcest
Intralogistics & Automation Continuous-duty vertical transfer, and lifts inside automated car parks
Heavy Industry & Metals Heavy freight between levels in hot, dusty, shock-loaded buildings
Energy & Renewables Deep, remote or hazardous plant where maintenance access is expensive
Architecture & Special Buildings Lifts in buildings that cannot be altered to accept one
Industrial Maintenance & MRO Access and spares movement in assets that cannot shut down
Infrastructure Availability — the asset cannot close while the lift is repaired

Frequently asked questions

A rigid chain lift pushes the car on interlocking steel columns rather than on a hydraulic ram. There is no borehole, no hydraulic fluid, no pressurisation dwell before movement and no heat to remove — and the mechanism stores compactly in a shallow pit.

No. All drive equipment is housed in a shallow pit, which removes the machine room from the brief and returns that area to usable floor space.

From 450 kg for special capacity passenger lifts to 60,000 kg for the largest standard truck lift, with goods lifts spanning 1,500 kg to 25,000 kg in between. Bespoke systems have no practical catalogue limit.

Yes, and it is one of the most common applications. The compact, modular, purely mechanical drive fits existing shafts with very little impact on the building fabric, which is why it appears frequently in heritage, rail and industrial modernisation.

SERAPID Lift Systems comply with EN 81-20, EN 81-21, EN 81-31, EN 81-41 and EN 81-50, under either the Lift Directive 2014/33/EU or the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC depending on the configuration.

Discuss your lift specification with SERAPID

Our engineering team routes visitors from concept through product selection and compliance route to installation.

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