Rollercoaster Physics Essay

The Physics of Roller Coasters

The beginning of rollercoasters dates back to the 15th century in Russia, where the first coaster ride was simply created in the form of an ice slide. During the 1400’s, long and steep wooden structures were built to heights of 70 to 80 feet tall with ice frozen over the long and sloping ramp, see Figure 1 (Learner.org, 2016). Sledders would be mounted on an ice or wooden sled down a 50o drop platform with little support at tremendous speed. Ice slides were built parallel to each other, however facing opposite direction, allowing riders to travel back and forth (Learner.org, 2016). In 1817, wheeled cars which securely lock onto the track were introduced to the early development of rollercoasters and the first

A rollercoaster ride is a balance between health and safety factors, thrill and sensation. The thrill of a rollercoaster arises from the physical principle of the ride, the law of energy conservation. The key to a successful coaster stems from the basic motion concepts including velocity, potential and kinetic energy, centripetal forces and acceleration of the rollercoaster and naturally the safety factors including the support force, frictional losses and the total gravity (g’s) felt by the rider.

Rollercoaster rides consist of simple features including hills and dips, vertical loops and banked corners. An investigation was implemented in order to explore and determine the conservation of potential and kinetic energy and different forces throughout different parts of a rollercoaster ride. As an outcome, a rollercoaster ride was designed, refer to Appendix

According to Newton’s First Law of Motion, an object in motion will stay in motion unless there is an equal force and opposite acting against it (Psu.edu, 2016). Thus, the coaster train remains in motion. As the coaster train enters the loop to loop, Centripetal Force (Fc) starts to act upon the rider in order to keep the coaster train travelling throughout the loop to loop. It is the total force of inertia, the upward force known as the “apparent” weight (Fs) exerted by the coaster train, the downward pull of gravity (Fg) and centripetal acceleration (Ac) which acts on the coaster train as it travels through the vertical circle, refer to Figure