Roller Coasters Lab Report

There is no place more jam packed with real life, physics examples than an amusement park. Silverwood Theme Park is a prime example of how physics is present in one’s everyday life. Two rides at this particular theme park can be found in many variations all around the world: wooden roller coasters. The two wooden roller coasters found in Silverwood are named Timber Terror and Tremors. These two thrilling rides are one of the most basic roller coasters in the park, yet there is almost always at least a twenty minute wait for these rides. The question becomes, “Why are these rides so popular?” Well, the answer is in the physics behind the two coasters.

Lights, cameras, action! This new coaster is gonna have everyone running towards the entrance! There is a new coaster coming to town called the Hollywood Coaster of Fame! Hollywood Coaster of Fame is a coaster based on the bright lights and stardom of Hollywood. Riders will experience a speed from 0-75 miles per hour which will shoot the riders up a 195-foot hill. Before dropping down the hill the riders will feel a bit of suspense on the very top of the hill, which is where the potential energy is the highest. Then riders will feel the weightlessness of dropping down the 195-foot hill into the first loop where gravity pushes down into their seats. The momentum of the loop will take them around a sharp turn making

While at the asylum, your body will feel heavier from high amounts of G-force. The reason why your body will feel heavier is because of the twisting and turning off the tracks. As you exit that room, you will experience complete darkness, until you finally reach Mary Anne’s obscene memory with Dr. Bumby. The ride is going fast, so it’s increasing its acceleration at this point. Once you get to the highest point of the ride, you experience the highest amount of potential energy. The coaster tracks then curve, creating centripetal force. As the ride begins to go up, you experience maximum kinetic energy just as the riders pass through the bottom of the loop. When the memory between Dr. Bumby and Mary Anne finalizes, there is only one room left before the entire ride ends. As the rider is going down the straight track, there is less energy at the end of the ride than at the start due to friction and air resistance. The ride ends off with the rider going through the cat’s

Then as the coaster begins its decent down the first hill, the energy is converted back into kinetic energy as the train is pulled toward the Earth by gravity. Gravity is the traditional source of power for roller coasters that accelerates the train as it goes on its hilly, twisty journey.3 Gravity is a unit of acceleration, that is always present, that causes free-falling objects on Earth to change their speed at a rate of approximately 10 m/s (32ft/s) every second.1 So, as the train goes down the hills of the track it has a positive acceleration giving it the necessary potential energy to “climb” the next hill, make a turn, or travel through a loop.

a roller coaster is moved only by the forces of inertia and gravity. The only exertion of energy

There were faster, taller, and safer, roller coasters then ever before before. The industry was so successful that from 1974 to 1980 more roller coasters were being built each year than all the previous years combined since 1920. After Allen retired there was room for a rising star to shine. This star was Ron Toomer. He got a degree in mechanical engineering. He then designed the heat shield on Apollo 11 the first spaceship to land on the moon .All over she was done with NASA and got a job Arrow Dynamic Inc. His first big roller coaster was The Runaway Mine Train in Six Flags Over Texas, today this roller coaster is a national landmark. About 9 years after Runaway Mine Train, Toomor design Corkscrew the first modern coaster to go upside down. About nine years after that you built the Big Bad Wolf second suspended coaster in the world. He also built Magnum XL-200 First roller coaster ever two break 200 feet tall, This is now known as a hyper coaster. Ron Toomor was the king of roller coasters. He was such an influence in roller coasters that he is made the list of Britannica's top 100 influential inventors, Along with Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin, and Steve Jobs. All this you must be thinking wow this guy must love riding roller coasters, however this is not the case, “I’ve had a bad motion sickness problem since I was a little kid,” he said. “But I’ve ridden enough of them to know what happens and how it feels.” Now roller coasters is a big competition to build the tallest, fastest, longest. Here are the current records: The fastest roller coaster is Formula Rossa at 149.1 Miles per hour. Kingda Ka has two records for the Tallest at 456 ft and the biggest drop at 418 ft. Steel dragon 2000 is the longest with 8133.2

When engineers build the roller coasters, their main purpose is to make these roller coasters full for joy, fear, thrill and adrenaline where people can visit and gain enjoyable experience. Although these roller coasters are supposed to be a source of fun, there are some negative aspects of it that reflect negatively on both the environment and the society. The first negative effect on the environment is air pollution. Obviously, running this tall, powerful roller coaster takes a lot of energy. This massive amount of energy comes from burning fossil fuels in order to provide energy to power the roller coaster. In addition, building a very long roller coaster requires a huge space. As a result, roller coasters are build in rural areas. Because

Another variable for energy loss is friction, which creates heat, slowing down the cart due to drag force. The wheels between the tracks cause the friction and as the car moves through the roller coaster and takes corners the normal force increases making the force of friction increase, which in turn the loss of friction increases. Sound is another factor for energy loss, the energy is produced when the friction is the highest and it was observed that in the first loop the sound increased as the car approached the highest point in the loop. The same can be observed with the second loop and with the inverted curve as the car reached the entrance. Parallax affects energy loss within the roller coaster due to the wrong calculations. When viewing the videos, it was difficult to determine where the cart reached each location.

(For explaining the basics of roller coasters, I will use a simplistic track layout as seen in appendix A.) The first part of a roller coaster must be the work of a constant force, this work, or the chain lift in appendix A, allows the train to reach its highest potential energy, as the train ascends the first hill, the potential energy is changed to kinetic energy, the highest point of kinetic energy is at the bottom of the hill, and as soon as the train starts to ascend again the kinetic energy is switched back to potential energy (Cutnell & Johnson 162-165) as it climbs the next hill. This process continues for the rest of the drops in the rollercoaster.

The work that is applied will then lead up to a great acceleration causing high amusement and high wind speeds which is a key factor of the Earth. Now that you are aware of how you will be traveling, here comes the most exhilarating portion of the ride, the end of the first loop! As soon as you are twirled around, especially with the front facing loops, you will then be projected towards the first spin of the roller coaster. During the time between your first pleasurable experience and the turn, you will have the most amount of momentum. Without this factor you would not travel anywhere, which would not create Tectonic Terror. Then, once you then reach the turn you will be experiencing the greatest amount of centripetal acceleration since you are traveling in a curved path, and not upside down. At this instant you will also weigh the largest since you are squished inside of your seat as you are whipped around that first turn. (Which is also a large amount of fun since you are traveling at such a

The law on conservation states that the total energy in one part of the coaster will be equal to any given part of the coaster. Total energy is equal to the sum of the potential and kinetic energy.

The ride begins with a climb to the top of a 367-foot hill at a constant speed, where the car will reach its highest potential energy. Within seconds the coaster dips down toward the ground and races away, accelerating, from the top of the hill while riders are in freefall. The coaster does not stop when it reaches the ground, though, it continues underground reaching an air pressure that could pop your eardrums. Not a minute later the coaster returns above ground into a loop, creating a great centripetal force toward the center of the current loop. Succeeding the loop the coaster comes to a halt at the bottom of a small hill in a dark building. Instants later the train is shot forward by a hydraulic system using the basics of Pascal’s Principle, causing riders to experience inertia jerk. Following the burst of speed at 95 mph, the roller coaster will go through an intense escape from the police, including sudden brakes where friction has the most effect and sharp turns creating extreme lateral g-force. At the end, there is a small sloped hill causing momentum roll because of the previous momentum from the main part of the ride. The remaining story of the police chase is only known by those who have experienced the stimulating

While the roller coaster is in operation, it is mainly affected by these following force:

When a roller coaster crests the first big hill, gravity takes over, causing the roller coaster to fall down at a constant rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. All that stored potential energy changes to kinetic energy, which can also be thought of as moving energy.

Roller Coasters were first built in January of 1885, since then thousands of people have traveled to amusement park in order to ride these rides. When they were first invented they were made out of wood and did not have many turns or tricks. Through the years they have evolved into metal with many turns, loops, and heights. With the added on thrills, there are many dangers, deaths, and accidents that come along with riding roller coasters.