INSIDE The Lab That Tests Elevator Free-Falls - #36
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The Over Speed Governor
The over speed governor is a machine at the top of the shafts where the cable and mechanisms are that looks at how fast the elevator is traveling. If it starts traveling much faster than expected by around 20% faster, safety gears kick in. So they're basically these like triangular wedges with brake pads on them that are forced upwards, making contact with the guide rails that then bring the car to a halt. There's some footage of this in the video of a car being dropped, picking up incredible speed 26 meters a second and then being stopped before it hits the bottom. It takes several weeks and months of planning to basically do one of these drop tests, which I found really interesting.
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