The photo above from 1979 shows a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory employee opening what was thought to be the world’s heaviest hinged door. It was 44 tonnes with a thickness of 2.5 meters and width of 3.6 meters. A special bearing in the hinge allowed a single person to open or close the concrete-filled door.
The door was used to shield the Rotating Target Neutron Source-II (RTNS-II) — the world’s most intense source of continuous fusion neutrons. Like most of the other contenders for world’s heaviest door, it is not designed to keep people out it is more about protecting the outside world from the contents behind it.
It is not designed to keep people out, it is about protecting the outside world from the contents behind it
Competing for the title is the heaviest swing door in existence. Dubai Studio City has a four piece sliding door that is 90 feet wide x 50 feet tall and weighs 800,000 pounds. Also in the mix is to be found at Lockheed-Martin in California: a single piece sliding door that weighs 366,000 pounds. And there’s a 740 tonne sliding missile silo top door in Arizona which holds the Titan 2 ICBM missiles.
©NIFS Japan
However, according to the Guinness World of Records, the world’s heaviest door is in fact the radiation shield door in the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan. It weighs 720 tonnes, is 11.73 m high, 11.4 m wide and 2m thick.
