What is the fastest elevator in the world? Is it that cool glass one from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? No, it isn’t! Although it could be rather interesting if you had Willy Wonka as your elevator companion—at least you would not be bored if the elevator broke down between floors 176 and 177.
So, what is the fastest elevator in the world? The REAL fastest elevator in the world can be found in the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101, and in 2006 the Guinness Book of Records officially certified it as the fastest elevator in the world. Ground breaking technology means that the world’s fastest elevator, built by Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp, has an eye-watering top speed of 1,010 meters per minute on the way up the building, and a top speed of 600 meters per minute on the way down.
Due to the phenomenal speed of the elevator, there have been some other groundbreaking technologies developed to ensure that the whole elevator experience is pleasurable experience as opposed to painful.
A high tech pressure control system automatically adjusts the atmospheric pressure inside the car by implementing suction and discharge blowers. This helps to prevent the “ear popping” phenomenon that can sometimes cause discomfort.
Vibration is canceled out by an active control system that moves the counter mass in the opposite direction based on information sent back from a vibration sensor inside the elevator. The car is also optimized to reduce whistling noises that are inevitable when an object travels at high speeds inside a narrow tube.
Unless you have had the pleasure of traveling inside the Taipei 101 elevator, it really does sound like something from a Science Fiction movie, but without such a super fast elevator, the Taipei 101 tower would never have been built to such a lofty height since any conventional elevator would take forever to climb up to the top floors. Let us hope that the