“A roller coaster is considered any elevated track with curves and rises, carrying passengers in open, rolling cars for entertainment” (5).
Today’s roller coasters appear to be tons of tubular metal intertwined around itself, but regardless of how big, fast, or gravity defying they are, they all use the same natural force – gravity. The more twisting, turning, flipping, and the faster a roller coaster goes, the more the coaster depends on the law of physics, not mechanics, to keep it moving. There is no onboard motor on roller coasters but they can still reach speeds that exceed the limits of a car on the parkway, while completing a curve, twist, rise, or plunge. History of Roller Coasters
Modern day roller coasters are based off of the fails and successes of those created over the years and though they are more complex today, roller coasters wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for the ones of past generations. Originating in Russia, roller coasters were as basic as they come – a simple ramp. Russia had the climate for sledding, but with flat plains and high altitudes it wasn’t necessarily possible. To solve this problem they built frozen slides where inclines didn’t naturally exist. This worked well for the Russians but other countries didn’t have such cold winters to maintain the ice on the slide. French inventors desperately wanted a slide of their own so they came up with wheels. These wheels would sit in the carved grooves of wooden ramps, which would allow for year-round fun. Eventually this Russian invented, French evolved contraption grew in popularity and proved that people craved the speed, the height, and sense of daringness that have resulted in the roller coasters of today and those that have yet to come.
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The Physics of Roller Coasters
All roller coasters rely on the same physical forces to move – potential energy, kinetic energy, gravity, and momentum. Roller coasters use the power from getting to the top of the lift hill or from a powerful mechanism that will launch the coaster, to get the ride started. The long lift hill at the start of a roller coaster isn’t there to build-up the suspense for what is about to come; it’s there to build potential, or stored, energy. The higher you go above earth, the stronger the pull of gravity will be; so the potential energy that was built up during the uphill lift becomes kinetic energy, or the energy or motion, once the coaster plummets downhill due to the force of gravity. “The law of conservation of energy states that in a closed, isolated system, energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, energy is conserved. Under these conditions, energy changes from one form to another while the total energy of the system remains constant” (8).
The earth is always pulling things towards its center so a great deal energy is needed to overcome the gravitational force. A good example of this would be trying to walk uphill compared to walking downhill. While walking uphill you are pulling away from earth’s center and against the gravitational pull. When said hill is steeper it is even more difficult to walk up because more energy is needed to overcome the pull gravity is creating. So the taller the hill, the more energy it takes to overcome gravity, but this also means the more potential energy there is, which in roller coaster talk means a faster ride.
The Russian ice slides and the basic ramp both used potential and kinetic energy: energy was exerted to get uphill then gravity took over and brought everything back down. Once at the bottom the ride was over. However, most of today’s roller coasters build up potential energy multiple times. When a ride has multiple hills, every time the cars ascend up a hill only to be plummeted back downhill, makes roller coasters all the more fun. Roller coasters use gravity, potential energy, and kinetic energy to get started initially, but another fundamental law of physics keeps the coaster moving. Newton’s First Law, or the law of inertia, states that objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless an outside influence acts upon it. This law is important when it comes to roller coasters because the cars of the roller coaster tend to stay in a forward motion along the track as long as there is no force to stop it. This is also the reason why there will never be a roller coaster whose hills increase as the rides goes on. This is because the potential energy that was accumulated during the lift hill will “gradually [lose] friction between the train and the track, as well as between the train and the air… At this point, the train either comes to a stop or is sent up the lift hill for another ride” (3).
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A roller coaster would be nothing without its turns, loops, and tricks and just like anything else pertaining to a roller coaster, physics plays a major role in this. The loop or curve on a coaster ride occurs because the tracks are bent and the cars going at a high momentum have the natural tendency to not only keep moving, but to continue in the direction it was already going in unless acted on by an outside force. When you think of a loop logically, one tends to think the car should go straight down once it reaches the top of the loop; however, “the car builds momentum through the use of hills and gravity during the ride and is moving fast,” (5) as it ascends up the loop. The upward curve as well as the inertia, or the resistance to change its straightforward motion, of the track forces the car to go up and over where it will also push outward against the curved shape of the tracks. This is also referred to as the centripetal force. In this case “the [roller coaster] cars would normally go straight, but the track forces them in a different direction, so they push against whatever constraint forces them to travel in a circle” (5).
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... As early as 1895, designers were experimenting with loops. G-Forces Positive G'sWhen riding a roller coaster, riders will sometimes feel very heavy in ... top speed of 6 miles per hour, and the train cars had to be manually towed to the top of the ... Lateral G's occur when the roller coaster is in a corner. Your body is going straight, but the coaster is turning. Banking the turn ...
The centripetal force also keeps the cars closely connected to the track and the riders in their seat… for the most part, during the loop. Roller Coasters and Your Body
Then again, they best part of a roller coaster is that sense of flying and having no real control over your body. When it feels as if you’re “floating” on a roller coaster you are in free-fall. Usually your muscles and all of the other parts of your body are pushing towards each other because of the constant force of gravity, but during free-fall your body doesn’t push together as much which is why you feel weightless or like you’re sinking. “When a coaster car is speeding up, the actual force acting on you is the seat pushing your body forward. But, because of your body’s inertia, you feel a force in front of you, pushing you into the seat. You always feel the push of acceleration coming from the opposite direction of the actual force accelerating you” (3).
Acceleration is measured in gs and refers to the acceleration caused by gravity. “One g is 9.8 meters per second squared, or about 32 feet per second squared- that tells you how fast gravity changes your velocity every second” (4).
For example, “a force 3 times stronger than Earth’s gravity will produce an acceleration of 3 gs” (7).
Roller coasters can’t exceed a certain amount of g-forces or else the passengers may pass out. Another reason passengers used to lose consciousness was because of the loop. Years ago the loop was more of a circular shape rather than a clothoid loop like today. A clothoid looks as if a circle was stretched upward at the top. At one point roller coaster designers abandoned the idea of the loop all together because it caused injury to the riders. Designers didn’t have the knowledge of g-forces at that time so they didn’t know what amount not to exceed before the force exerted would be too much for the human body. Today designers know their limits and work to push them everyday while still within reason.
With the help of gravity and other fundamental laws of physics, roller coaster designers are able to create roller coasters that allow for a unique experience that is different on each roller coaster. Roller coasters may send riders coasting through the air but they wouldn’t be able to do so without physics and the roller coasters that preceded the complex, marvels of science seen in the amusement parks or today.
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