Dear Colleagues,

We are planning a Special Issue of the journal Sustainability with a focus on ropeways. The title will be rather general, namely “Ropeways: New Trends for Applications, Techniques, and Simulation”. We intend to collect reviews of both scientists at Universities as well as engineers from leading companies to give an overview of current research and industrial activities. Our main goal is to bring together pure academic research and practical engineering to understand the problems and to bridge the potential gap between the two approaches. In particular, due to increasing computational power, the development of algorithms in simulation sciences has also become more and more important in ropeway planning. We believe that an overview of current research should be of interest for any scientist, technician, or engineer working in this field.

This especially seems to be the case because, in view of the rich set of different types of plants, the special needs in the simulation of ropeways can only be satisfied with difficulty. Furthermore, commercial general finite element solvers are not always sufficient, and individual approaches are required. Accordingly, the literature consists of many (manageable) research articles addressing particular problems in ropeway simulation (see, for example, the articles below) and many more articles dealing with fundamental problems in the mathematical description of moving/oscillating elastic/inelastic cables or strings (see, for example, A. Luongo G. Rega, F. Vestroni, Planar non-linear free vibrations of an elastic cable, International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics, 1984, 19 (1), pp. 39-52) and technical reference books (E. Czitary, Seilschwebebahnen, 2. Erw. Aufl. 1962, Springer, or the newer G. Hofmann, Ropeway Technology, available through Garaventa AG).

In view of the contemporary and future challenges, very welcome among others will be contributions dealing with aspects of energy efficiency, environmental benefits, and urban ropeways as a transport mode that significantly fosters sustainability.

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• ropeways
• technique
• simulation
• computational engineering
• sustainability