Mercedes Museum Hosts The World’s Strongest Man Made Tornado

The Mercedes-Benz museum, located in Stuttgart, Germany, is not only unique due to the vehicles or the distinctive design of the building but also because it (officially) hosts the “strongest artificially generated tornado in the world”. The record was confirmed in the presence of Guinness Book of Records representative Olaf Kuchenbecker.

However, despite what you may think, the 34-metre-high artificial tornado does not act as a decorative piece of the museum; it’s actually functional as it serves to eliminate smoke in the event of a fire. See, in order to achieve approval from authorities, fire protection regulations required all areas outside the fire level to be smoke-free in the event of smoke emission. However, due to the open-plan structure of the museum, the exhibition areas are connected to each other without any fire zones via an interior courtyard and ramps. -Continued after the jump

This meant that the architectures and engineers had to take an innovative approach to solve the problem. The answer came in the form of a unique smoke elimination system that uses the principle of the tornado force. In the event of fire, 144 outlets located along the core walls inject air into the interior courtyard of the Mercedes-Benz Museum. This generates an artificial tornado, and the smoke collected is then discharged into the outside air via a smoke elimination ventilator located in the upper part of the building. Cool to say the least.