Museums

10/16/2007

Whirled Record

German Museum Creates World's Tallest Mini-Tornado

The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart put its smoke ventilation machine to the test Monday and -- on purpose -- made a 9-story-tall tornado.

Stuttgart's Mercedes-Benz Museum set a new record for the tallest artificially produced tornado in the world Monday by using its unique fire prevention system to create a 34.43 meter (113 feet) vortex.

The record was certified by representatives from Guinness World Records, who were present in the museum to witness the test. Michael Bock, director of the year-old museum, said "This award is related to safety; that's why it's so important to us."

The experiment took place in the museum's 42-meter-high central atrium. Suction power came from the 144 air nozzles of the smoke extraction ventilator at the top of the atrium, designed to quickly suck smoke out of the museum in case of fire. A disco smoke machine produced smoke. After about seven minutes, the mini-tornado took shape with a deafening roar and put 28 metric tons of air in swirling motion.

"The air is blown in from the sides and sucked out in the middle from the ventilator," the ventilator's designer Rüdiger Detzer told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "That's how you get the vortex."

Detzer and his colleagues designed the ventilator specifically for the museum. To test it, they built an 18-1 scale model. "We even put those expensive little Mercedes toy cars into the model, which are also built at an 18-1 ratio," Detzer told the newspaper.

The museum, designed by Amsterdam-based architectural firm UN Studio, opened in May 2006.

jtw/dpa

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