Research Paper On Roller Coasters

Roller coasters are driven almost entirely by inertial, gravitational and centripetal forces. Amusement parks keep building faster and more complex roller coasters, but the fundamental principles at work remain the same.

Whoosh the air rushes past your neck, you start accelerating, falling straight down. If you haven’t ridden a roller coaster that is not how it feels. It gives you a feeling you can’t describe in words. Roller coasters have a rich history and are physics beacons of the world. Also the market of roller coasters is huge. Throughout my research I answered my questions. What is the history of roller coasters? What are the physics of roller coasters? How much do roller coasters and amusement parks cost? and Why are roller coasters such a big market?

The cars on a typical roller coaster are not self-powered. A standard full circuit coaster is pulled up with a chain or cable along the lift hill to the first peak of the coaster track. The potential energy accumulated by the rise in height is transferred to kinetic energy as the cars race down the first downward slope. Kinetic energy is then converted back into potential energy as the train moves up again to the second peak. This hill is necessarily lower, as some mechanical energy is lost to friction. Not all rides feature a lift hill, however. The train may be set into motion by

A roller coaster’s popularity depends mainly on many different basic elements which are parts that are usually on roller coasters such as the headchopper, the launch track, and the lift hill. The headchopper is any place where the roller coaster overlaps itself or appears to come very close to the passenger’s heads. The launch track is a part of the coaster where the train is accelerated to its max speed within a few seconds and drastically increases the train’s kinetic energy. The lift hill is similar to the launch track by increasing the train’s potential energy by raising it to the roller coaster’s

and are designed out of different materials like wood and steel. Although roller coasters are fun and exciting, the questions, what allows them to twist and turn, go up and down hills at a fairly good speed? Why do they not fall off of the track when it goes through a loop? The answer to these questions and others about roller coasters lies in the application

While you are going up the first hill you will be traveling at a constant speed of 8 miles per hour. The machine in the roller coaster has to use a certain amount of work to get the mass of the people and cart up the first hill. Right before you start to spin down the first hill there will be gravity and acceleration pulling you down the spinning hill. Once you stop spinning while going down that first hill you will be at a spot right before the first hill where you will be experiencing terminal velocity. After you finish that loop you are gonna get pushed right up another hill and as you are falling down the hill you are gonna loop forward and be weightless while going through newton's 2nd law as you near the bottom of the hill. You will start going up another hill like the one on Track A and twist down in a corkscrew type way. During the twists you will experience very much centripetal force. You will go around another little turn like you did on Track A then instantaneous speed will be slowing you down right before you go back into the station.

Here is how it works, you will wait at the top of the coffee cup which is the station and step in the ride, as soon as each person loads on the roller coaster and are ready, you will elevate up the first hill. So you may embark on the journey with who you drink your coffee with in the morning. First the coffee bean cart will rise about 450 feet in the air and then the roller coaster accelerates down at a constant speed of 102 miles per hour. This roller coaster is 7,442 feet long or 189.03 meters in length. On the first hill you stop at the top of the hill, causing a tremendous about of potential energy, you just dangle to the top of the hill peer down below you. This is one of the main thrill factors of this ride. After hanging there so what seems to be a hour, you will drop down with a gargantuan amount of kinetic energy, this is also where you hit your terminal velocity. While hitting your terminal velocity you will also be weightless and free falling while rapidly rushing down the hill. This is an example of Newton's 3rd law, an object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an unbalance

The origin of the roller coaster can be traced back to Russia and their ice slides. These slides were made of ice as they were more prominent during the winter festival, and what a better way than to use the ice that was around them. The ice slide can be traced back as early as the 17th century, to the time of Catherine the Great and they were found mainly in St. Petersburg, Russia. The structures that supported the slides were constructed out of wood and the surface was covered with a thick sheet of ice made of many inches thick. Riders reached the top of the slides via the stairs that were located at the back of the slides. Once they reached the top they descended a 50 degree drop and this exhilarated many and even those members of the

Roller coasters don’t have engines. They have to use chains and gravity. Its cheaper and more efficient. If they had engines they would have to carry the engine and battery up each slope. It would make it heavier and require more battery power. Roller coasters use a chain. The chain brings it to the top and lets go gravity takes over and propels the coaster through the rest of the ride. The chain requires less energy than putting a battery and engine on each cart. On roller coasters you will experience G’s. G’s are when you either feel heavier than normal or completely weightless. At the bottom of that huge drop you will generally feel really heavy or a lot of G's because the earth is pushing up on you and the coaster pushing down on the ground or track. At the top of a loop you will feel weightless or almost no G’s because there is little force or motion on your body. Most all roller coasters have different points of excitement at a certain part of the

At the roller coasters are nothing more than fun rides, but a closer inspection reveals that these machines are complicated works of physics. The purpose is to build up some kind of potential energy. The concept of potential energy means as the roller coaster goes higher in the air, the gravity acting upon it can pull it down a greater distance. once it goes down the bump/hill what is released is kinetic energy, which is the energy of motion that takes you down the hill.

Roller Coaster have many different things that come together in order for it to become a “ride.” Many people probably do not understand the different things that has to happen in order for roller coaster to even move. There are many things such as; acceleration, energy, force, gravity, inertia, Newton’s Laws of Motion, Velocity and weight that has to come together in order for a roller coaster to move. Roller Coasters are made by rapid changes in speed and or direction. The speed and direction of the riders change because the amount of acceleration the rides have.

Many people don’t really know how a roller coaster works. According to (Amusement Park Physics -- Roller Coaster. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2014), “roller coasters have to make a certain height to make the first loop which is usually the highest loop of the ride”. “As the roller coaster is pulled to the top of the initial hill, it gains potential energy, and the higher the hill is, the more potential energy is stored”(Sastamoinen, S Roller Coaster Physics.)

At some point in life everyone takes a ride on a roller coaster, most people don’t now where they come from and when they were invented, lets take a look to the origin and history of the roller coasters, the initiative for modern roller coasters is based in a very common kid’s attraction that you can find in any playground, the slide. During the 17th century Russian slides come to a whole new level across Russia, but they weren’t normal slides, they were ice slides. As the name says these slides were frozen over with ice and the riders were simply push down sitting on a matt adding some protection between the raider and the ice, and were tall wood structures. Catherine

The history of the roller coaster can be dated back as early as the 16th century. Reading about the origin of the roller coasters sparked my great interest in their construction. I came across interesting facts such as how roller coasters originated in Russia . They were once called the “Russian Mountains” and were composed of lumber with a sheet of thick ice covering the surface (“Roller Coaster History”). Their infrastructure captivated my attention and I found myself pondering on how they managed to construct their calculations and mathematically figure out the force needed for the roller coaster to continuously move. Therefore, I have constructed a roller coaster through the use of polynomial and trigonometric functions by taking into account

Individuals love to go to the amusement parks and try out the rides that are available. The most common and thrilling ride is the roller coaster. An amusement park is not an amusement park if it does not contain a roller coaster. What makes these roller coasters so fun that every amuse parks has one. A lot of people would say it is their extreme high speeds that makes it very exciting. That is a valid answer, but it is the wrong answer. The speed has nothing to do with the excitement. It is more than likely that most people travel faster on their ride along the highway on the way to the amusement park than they would in a roller coaster. Basically the thrill all comes from the acceleration and the feeling of weightlessness that they