Bank vault

A bank vault or strongroom is a very large safe located in the heart of a bank building in which valuables are stored. Modern bank vaults generally contain many safe deposit boxes, as well as places for teller cash drawers, and other valuable assets of the bank or its customers.

One of the more important functions of a bank vault, just as for large bank buildings, is to give customers the feeling that their money is secure. The largest bank vault door known in the world is that of Cleveland Ohio Fourth District Federal Reserve District bank. The door has an overall height of 226 inches and weighs over 47 tons fully assembled. The door casting itself was 20 tons. It incorporated the largest hinge ever built. Banks struggle to demonstrate similar security in the era of electronic funds transfer, although it is likely just as impervious as the large vaults and buildings of yesteryear.

Bank vaults are now typically built primarily of thick steel- reinforced concrete, although steel plates are sometimes incorporated into the walls, floors and ceiling to slow down would-be safe-crackers who may attempt to tunnel into the vault. Vibration and sound detectors accumulate sounds and set off an alarm if a lot of noise is made over a period of hours. These measures defeat most robbers who would tunnel into the vault from beneath or through a wall.

Bank's vaults are now almost all locked with a timed lock, to prevent taking the manager as a hostage during a robbery. It also prevents would be robbers from putting people into the vault. Nevertheless, most modern bank vaults have an air vent to let fresh air into the vault should someone be inadvertently locked in.

There were four Mosler Safe Company bank vaults in the Teikoku Bank in Hiroshima, Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped there. Less than 100 yards from the epicenter of the blast, all four and their contents survived unscathed, and served as the focal point for resurveying the city. The survival of these safes became a promotional boon to Mosler, who were subsequently granted the contract to construct the "atomic proof" vaults housing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in Washington, DC. Similar doors were produced by Mosler for the Greenbrier nuclear fallout shelter outside of Washington.

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