The World's Fastest Elevator

By Roland Piquepaille

The two world's fastest elevators are now installed in the world's tallest building, the Taipei 101 office tower, in Taipei, Taiwan. In this short article, the Japan Times writes that the Guinness Book of Records has certified the elevators' specifications. These elevators, built by Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corp. (TELC), can move 24 passengers up at a speed of 1,010 meters per minute (about 60 km/h), or down a little bit slower at only 600 meters per minute (about 36 km/h). Going up 382 meters inside this 508-meter-high building will take you only 39 seconds using these elevators. And don't worry about 'ear popping': these elevators include new technologies, such as a pressure control system. Read more below...

Because the Japan Times article is very short, please also check the TELC web site and this press release about these elevators. But let's start with the building itself.

Soaring 508 meters, Taipei 101 is now the world's tallest building, having supplanted the 452-metre Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The new building, largely devoted to offices, is called Taipei 101 because it has 101 above-ground floors, as well as five underground floors.

Here is a photograph of Taipei 101 when the structure was completed in January 2004 (Credit: Philo Vivero, via Wikipedia). For more information about Taipei 101, you can visit these pages at Wikipedia or at SkyscraperPage.com. For additional pictures, you also can visit this gallery at Emporis, but just for viewing.

Construction of Taipei 101 started in June 1999 and the grand opening will be celebrated on December 31, 2004. TELC has installed 61 elevators and 50 escalators in Taipei 101, including two elevators that run at 1,010 meters per minute (60.6 kilometers per hour), the world's fastest, and 34 double-deck elevators.

Of course, these elevators, which exceeded the previous speed record by an impressive 33%, are filled with new technology.

• The world's first pressure control system, which adjusts the atmospheric pressure inside a car by using suction and discharge blowers, preventing those riding inside the car experiencing 'ear popping'.
• An active control system which cancels vibrations by moving the counter mass in the opposite direction based on the vibration data from a sensor installed in the car.
• Optimization in the configuration of the streamlined car to reduce the whistling noise produced by a car running at a high speed inside a narrow hoist-way.

Here is a link to an illustration showing the different control systems of these elevators (848 x 1,200 pixels, 247 KB).

And in case you want more technical information about the world's fastest elevator, you can read this long paper published by Elevator World in September 2003 and was reprinted from the International Association of Elevator Engineers (IAEE) in Elevator Technology 12, Proceedings of Elevcon 2002, the 12th International Congress on Vertical Transportation Technologies, held June 25-27, 2002 in Milan, Italy.

Taipei 101 will be opened to the public on December 31, 2004. And if someone wants to invite me for this opening, I would be delighted to say "Happy New Year!" to the other people sharing my ride to the top of the world's tallest building. But I'm surely dreaming!

Sources: The Japan Times Online, December 17, 2004; and various web sites

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