how can a rolller coaster stay on the tracks?

Answer 1

In this article, we'll examine the principles that keep coaster cars flying around their tracks. We'll also look at the hardware that keeps everything running, as well as the forces that make the ride so much fun.

At first glance, a roller coaster is something like a passenger train. It consists of a series of connected cars that move on tracks. But unlike a passenger train, a roller coaster has no engine or power source of its own.

For most of the ride, a roller coaster is moved only by the forces of inertia and gravity. The only exertion of energy occurs at the very beginning of the ride, when the coaster train is pulled up the first hill (called the lift hill).

The purpose of this initial ascent is to build up a sort of reservoir of potential energy. The concept of potential energy, often referred to as energy of position, is very simple: As the coaster gets higher in the air, there is a greater distance gravity can pull it down. You experience this phenomenon all the time -- think about driving your car, riding your bike or pulling your sled to the top of a big hill. The potential energy you build going up the hill can be released as kinetic energy -- the energy of motion that takes you down the hill.

Converting Energy
As we saw above, the initial lift hill in a roller coaster serves to build up potential energy. Once you start cruising down that first hill, gravity takes over and all the built up potential energy changes to kinetic energy. Gravity applies a constant downward force on the cars.


A roller coaster's energy is constantly changing between potential and kinetic energy. At the top of the first lift hill (a), there is maximum potential energy because the train is as high as it gets. As the train starts down the hill, this potential energy is converted into kinetic energy -- the train speeds up. At the bottom of the hill (b), there is maximum kinetic energy and little potential energy. The kinetic energy propels the train up the second hill (c), building up the potential-energy level. As the train enters the loop-the-loop (d), it has a lot of kinetic energy and not much potential energy. The potential-energy level builds as the train speeds to the top of the loop (e), but it is soon converted back to kinetic energy as the train leaves the loop (f).
The coaster tracks serve to channel this force -- they control the way the coaster cars fall. If the tracks slope down, gravity pulls the front of the car toward the ground, so it accelerates. If the tracks tilt up, gravity applies a downward force on the back of the coaster, so it decelerates.

Up and Down the Tracks
Since an object in motion tends to stay in motion (Newton's first law of motion), the coaster car will maintain a forward velocity even when it is moving up the track, opposite the force of gravity. When the coaster ascends one of the smaller hills that follows the initial lift hill, its kinetic energy changes back to potential energy. In this way, the course of the track is constantly converting energy from kinetic to potential and back again. This fluctuation in acceleration is what makes roller coasters so much fun.


Photo courtesy Coaster Central
The Pepsi Max Big One, at Blackpool Pleasure Beach: This first hill drops the train 205 ft (62 m) at 74 mph (119 kph).

In most roller coasters, the hills decrease in height as you move along the track. This is necessary because the total energy reservoir built up in the lift hill is gradually lost to friction between the train and the track, as well as between the train and the air. When the train coasts to the end of the track, the energy reservoir is almost completely empty. At this point, the train either comes to a stop or is sent up the lift hill for another ride.

At its most basic level, this is all a roller coaster is -- a machine that uses gravity and inertia to send a train along a winding track. In the next sections, we'll look at the different components that make this machine work.

Answer 2

2 causes. a million) Centripetal stress. (no longer centrifugal) The coaster needs to continually go back and forth in a immediately line. In different words... it needs to bypass up, regardless of the indisputable fact that the song curves it round. 2) roller coasters actually have 3 instruments of wheels. Wheels on accurate of the song - those are the wheels that it rides round on. Wheels positioned sideways contained in the song - retains the coaster from sliding off the fringe of the song in turns. Wheels lower than the song - those wheels keep the coaster from leaving the song, both going airborne or off the song in a loop.

Answer 3

There is a great deal of dynamics and engineering that goes into the design of a roller coaster. They use the force of the speed and weight to keep the coaster safely on the tracks

Answer 4

They have wheels under the track as well as on top

Answer 5

Magic!

Answer 6

its got rollers on both sides so it can stay on havent you seen that when you where waiting to ride at the front of the line?

Answer 7

wheel and also magnetic force they also make it so that it has a hold of centrifigul force

Answer 8

sometimes magnets