If you’ve been lucky enough to head over to Las Vegas, there’s a strong chance that you would have experienced the speedy elevators that run up and down many of the major hotels across the city, but these are nothing compared to the even faster lifts in Taipei’s 101. From experience these lifts are simply amazing when you think about the more mundane services that we find in our major shopping centres and malls, however like everything else in today’s technology driven world, there is always the room for more speed.
Over in the Tianhe Districts of Guangzho in China work is currently underway on the CTF Finance Centre, which when completed will stand almost twice as tall as London’s Shard at a staggering 530m from ground level. Getting up to the upper floors of any skyscraper sized building is not something which we want to do in a typical average paced lift, not by far, so to get up to the 95th floor in a super quick time, Hitachi have been tasked with the job of putting together the worlds fastest elevator. Running along at a nippy 45mph, the elevator will be able to run up and down the 440m long shaft in little over 43 seconds, out pacing Toshiba’s 38mph speed in the 101.
When traveling at these speeds, there are a number of challenges that Hitachi will have to overcome – the biggest of these is the difference in air pressure. For anyone who has been in a super fast elevator you will most likely have experienced an ear popping sensation as the lift quickly changes altitude and consequently a different air pressure. To overcome this, Hitachi will automatically adjust the pressure in the carriage to compensate the ear popping sensation whilst a series of active guide rollers which will react to minute changes in the position of the guide rails, keeping the car as stable as possible. With a few additional guides and controls to keep the car on the straight and narrow in place, Hitachi hope that users will not feel as nauseous as you can sometimes feel in other fast elevators, allowing high level execs to get up to the 95th floor in seconds and to a meeting on time without feeling sick in the board room afterwards.
Construction of the CTF Finance Centre is due to finish in 2016 at which point Hitachi will become the makers of the worlds fastest lift.
Source: engadget
That’s pretty quick. When you step in on the ground floor you’re 6ft tall but when you get out on the 95th floor you’re suddenly 4ft tall and wondering what the hell happened. 🙂 If it descends faster than it ascends then passengers can have fun in zero gravity. Pretty nifty.