Roller coaster Totally Explained

Everything about The Roller Coaster totally explained

The roller coaster is a popular amusement ride developed for amusement parks and modern theme parks. LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first roller coaster on January 20, 1885. In essence a specialized railroad system, a roller coaster consists of a track that rises in designed patterns, sometimes with one or more inversions (such as vertical loops) that turn the rider briefly upside down. The track doesn't necessarily have to be a complete circuit, as shuttle roller coasters exhibit. Most roller coasters have multiple cars in which passengers sit and are restrained. An entire set of cars hooked together is called a train. Some roller coasters, notably Wild Mouse roller coasters, run with single cars.
In what may be a practical application of the roller coaster, NASA has announced that it'll build one to help astronauts escape the Ares I launch pad in an emergency.

Etymology

There are several explanations of the name roller coaster. It is said to have originated from an early French design where slides or ramps were fitted with rollers over which a sled would coast. This design was abandoned in favor of fitting the wheels to the sled or other vehicles, but the name endured.
Another explanation is that it originated from a ride located in a roller skating rink in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1887. A toboggan-like sled was raised to the top of a track which consisted of hundreds of rollers. This Roller Toboggan then took off down gently rolling hills to the floor. The inventors of this ride, Stephen E. Jackman and Byron B. Floyd, claim that they were the first to use the term "roller coaster."
The term jet coaster is used for roller coasters in Japan, where such amusement park rides are very popular.

History

"Russian Mountains" The oldest roller coasters descended from the so-called "Russian Mountains," which were specially constructed hills of ice, located especially around Saint Petersburg. Built in the 17th century, the slides were built to a height of between 70 and, consisted of a 50 degree drop, and were reinforced by wooden supports. "Russian mountains" remains the term for roller coasters in many languages.
   Some historians say the first real roller coaster was built under the orders of Russia's Catherine the Great in the Gardens of Oreinbaum in Saint Petersburg in the year 1784. Other historians believe that the first roller coaster was built by the French. The Les Montagnes Russes à Belleville (The Russian Mountains of Belleville) constructed in Paris in 1812 and the Promenades Aeriennes both featured wheeled cars securely locked to the track, guide rails to keep them on course, and higher speeds. By the 1850s, the "Gravity Road" (as it became known) was providing rides to thrill-seekers for 50 cents a ride. Railway companies used similar tracks to provide amusement on days when ridership was low. Using this idea as a basis, LaMarcus Adna Thompson began work on a gravity Switchback Railway that opened at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York in 1884. Passengers climbed to the top of a platform and rode a bench-like car down the track up to the top of another tower where the vehicle was switched to a return track and the passengers took the return trip. In fact, driving to the amusement park has a higher risk of injury than riding the rides at the amusement park. It isn't unusual for park management to pay higher insurance premiums for carousels than they do for roller coasters.
Many safety systems are implemented within roller coaster systems. The key to the mechanical fail safes is the control of the roller coaster's operating computers: programmable logic controllers (often called PLCs). Most roller coasters run with three separate PLCs; however, only one PLC is required to detect a fault for the ride's fail-safes to be activated. This is often the reason that the ride trains may stop on the lift or the brake runs, yet after a short time the ride starts again without any obvious maintenance by staff. It is likely in such a case that one of the PLCs detected a fault by mistake, and the ride operator only needed to restart the ride.
   Nevertheless, accidents do occur. Regulations vary from one authority to another. Thus in the USA, California requires amusement parks to report any ride-related accident that requires an emergency room visit, while Florida exempts parks whose parent companies employ more than 1000 people from having to report any accidents at all. Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts has introduced legislation that would give oversight of rides to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
   Ride accidents can be caused by riders or ride operators not following safety directions properly, but in extremely rare cases riders can be injured by mechanical failures. One such example was the 2006 de-railing of one car on the Wild Thing roller coaster at Valleyfair. This accident wasn't a serious accident, as is with almost all roller coaster accidents. Witnesses say the back car of the train derailed just as the train was entering the final brake run, and nobody was seriously hurt.
   In recent years, controversy has arisen about the safety of the increasingly extreme rides. There have been suggestions that these may be subjecting passengers to translational and rotational accelerations that may be capable of causing brain injuries. In 2003 the Brain Injury Association of America concluded in a report that "There is evidence that roller coaster rides pose a health risk to some people some of the time. Equally evident is that the overwhelming majority of riders will suffer no ill effects."
   A similar report in 2005 linked roller coasters and other thrill rides with potentially triggering abnormal heart conditions that could lead to death. Autopsies have shown that recent deaths at various Disney parks, Anheuser-Busch parks, and Six Flags parks were due to previously undetected heart ailments.

Physics

Roller coaster design is a science, as well as an art: the designer must use knowledge of kinematics to avoid overstressing the human body and building an uncomfortable or dangerous ride. The acceleration is a significant design parameter, as is the rate of change of acceleration, jerk. Jerk is often used in engineering as some precision or fragile objects—such as passengers—need time to sense stress changes and adjust their muscle tension to avoid injuries such as whiplash. Designers also have to incorporate gravitational forces into their design. On a roller coaster, humans have certain limits of G-forces that they can endure. Positive vertical forces (ones that push riders down into the seat) can be withstood the easiest, with forces almost going into the 6 G (six times the force of gravity) range. Negative vertical forces (a type of force that, if balanced with gravity correctly, will give the sensation of weightlessness), a force on a roller coaster in which the car crests a hill or similar element, and the riders are pushed out of their seat from centrifugal force. Designers normally don't exceed -1.5 to -2 G-forces in this type of force because it's the hardest for riders to endure. Lateral G-forces are also experienced on almost every ride ever built. This is the force that throws the rider toward one side of the seat when going around a curve. Normal lateral forces on a roller coaster usually don't exceed 1.5 Gs, though some have been recorded as 1.8. Lateral forces can cause an uncomfortable, rough feeling on a roller coaster if there's too much force.

Types of roller coasters

Today, there are two main types of roller coaster:

Steel coasters are known for their smooth ride and often convoluted shapes that frequently turn riders upside-down via inversions. Wooden coasters are typically renowned by enthusiasts for their rougher ride and "air time" produced by negative G-forces when the train reaches the top of hills along the ride. There are also hybrid roller coasters that combine a steel structure with wood tracks, or a wood structure with steel tracks.
Modern roller coasters take on many different forms. Some designs take their cue from how the rider is positioned to experience the ride. Traditionally, riders sit facing forward in the coaster car, while newer coaster designs have ignored this tradition in the quest for building more exciting, unique ride experiences. Variations such as the stand-up roller coaster and the flying roller coaster position the rider in different ways to provide different experiences. Stand-up coasters involve cars that have the riders in a standing position (though still heavily strapped in). Flying coasters have the riders hanging below the track face-down with their chests and feet strapped in. Vekoma "Flying Dutchman" coasters have the riders starting out sitting above the track, then they fully recline so that the riders are looking at the sky. Eventually, they twist into the "flying" position. B&M flying coasters have the riders hanging below the track like in an inverted (hanging) coaster. To go into the flight position, the section of the car where the riders' feet are is raised to the track. That way, they start in the flight position. In addition to changing rider viewpoint, some roller coaster designs also focus on track styles to make the ride fresh and different from other coasters.
See Roller coaster elements for the various parts of a roller coaster and the types of thrill elements that go into making each roller coaster unique.

By height

Several height-related names have been used by parks and manufacturers for marketing their roller coasters. While often used among coaster fans, their definitions are not always agreed upon, nor are the terms necessarily accepted industry wide.
A megacoaster is usually defined as a complete-circuit roller coaster with a lift hill or drop between and high. The world's first megacoaster was Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point. A coaster with a total elevation change of at least but with no individual ascent or drop of at least, such as Tatsu, isn't considered a megacoaster. The term hypercoaster, coined by amusement industry writer Allen Ambrosini, is also used for this height classification, but its usage is more ambiguous as it also refers to a "style" of coaster that's out and back, lacks inversions and is designed with speed and airtime (negative G-forces) in mind. A hypercoaster in this style may or may not fit the height classification; some manufacturers, such as Bollinger & Mabillard and Chance Morgan, use the term for production models both under and over the to range.
A gigacoaster is a complete-circuit roller coaster with a height of between and . The term was coined in 2000 by Cedar Point in conjunction with ridemaker Intamin AG of Switzerland, as a marketing description for their coaster Millennium Force, the first roller coaster to break the threshold. The term is used as a production designation on the Intamin website. The only other gigacoaster in existence, Steel Dragon 2000, also opened in 2000 and holds the record for world's longest roller coaster.

Name	Park	Manufacturer	Status	Opened	Height
Millennium Force	Cedar Point	Intamin AG	Operating	May 13, 2000
Steel Dragon 2000	Nagashima Spa Land	Chance Morgan	Operating	August 1, 2000

A stratacoaster is a complete-circuit roller coaster with a height between and . The term was adopted and attributed by Intamin. Only two stratacoasters have been built worldwide, both using Intamin's hydraulically-launched Accelerator Coaster design. The first was Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, which opened in 2003 and stands at a height of . The second was Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure, which opened in 2005 with a record-breaking height of . Tower of Terror and at Six Flags Magic Mountain and at Dreamworld, Australia, respectively, were the first roller coasters to break the barrier, but are not considered stratacoasters, since they're shuttle roller coasters and their cars go only high.

Name	Park	Manufacturer	Status	Opened	Height
Top Thrill Dragster	Cedar Point	Intamin AG	Operating	May 4, 2003
Kingda Ka	Six Flags Great Adventure	Intamin AG	Operating	May 21, 2005

A junior roller coaster is a roller coaster specifically designed for families and children not able to ride the larger rides.

Gallery

Image:Kingda Ka.jpg|Kingda Ka, the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster, located at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey. (see List of roller coaster records) Image:Rollercoaster expedition geforce holiday park germany.jpg|Riding Expedition GeForce, Germany. Image:linnanrollerc.JPG|This all-wooden roller coaster, built in 1951, dominates the Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, Finland. Image:Roller Coaster-Movie World Australia.jpg|The Road Runner roller coaster at Warner Bros. Movie World, Australia. Image:BGT Montu coasterfanatics.jpg|"Montu", a popular inverted roller coaster at Busch Gardens Africa Image:grizzly(turnaround).jpg| A classic wooden roller coaster at Great America. Image:Lethal Weapon Ride Track.JPG|"Lethal Weapon - The Ride" at Warner Bros. Movie World is among the first steel inverted roller coasters in Australia Image:Black mamba first drop.jpg|Black Mamba at Phantasialand, Germany Image:PKDHypersonicDrop.jpg|Hypersonic XLC, the world's first production Thrust Air 2000

Major roller coaster manufacturers

Arrow Dynamics (now S&S-Arrow since S&S Power bought Arrow Dynamics)

Great Coasters International

Pinfari (defunct)

Schwarzkopf (defunct)

TOGO (defunct)

The Gravity Group

Vekoma

Zamperla

Zierer

Further Information

Get more info on 'Roller Coaster'.

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