Energy In Roller Coasters

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Section 2: Energy
Energy is defined as the capacity of a physical system to perform work . As it is different from force that energy is a scalar quantity with magnitude but not direction. This decides that it is easier to calculate the energy change compared with force change, and it allows us to generally analyze the motion of a roller coaster instead of specifically.
Forms of energy
Energy exists in a variety of forms including light energy, nuclear energy, sound energy, mechanical energy, and so on. However, the most important forms energy that are applied to the motion of a roller coaster is mechanical energy.
The total mechanical energy of an object is the sum of the kinetic energy and potential energy. For the motion of roller coasters, …show more content…

Therefore, for the most of its ride, the speed, or the kinetic energy is given by the change in other forms of potential energy. Assuming that the roller coaster is moving from left to right in the graph above. In the beginning, the roller coaster has a higher gravitational potential energy due to higher distance above the ground. As it goes down, the gravitational potential energy continuously decreases and the most of it is converted into kinetic energy, ( whereas a small amount of it is converted into heat), which could provide the roller coaster with a certain speed to move on the …show more content…

Therefore, after going through the trough, it will still move forward to the second hill at a declining speed. In this process, Some part of kinetic energy is stored as gravitational potential energy, which could be further released and keeps pushing the roller coaster to go forward.
However, the peak of the hill could never be taller than original points with no kinetic energy and maximum potential energy, because not sufficient gravitational potential energy could be provided to allow it to go over the hill. The velocity of roller coaster will reach to zero in the half way and it will then run in an opposite position and going back.
The principle of conservation of energy
The principle of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transferred from one form of energy to another form . That means that the total energy of an isolated system is constant, even if there may be some energy change inside the system.
Therefore, assuming that friction could be ignored, the energy change of a running roller coaster could be exprssed below:

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