An understanding of forces, particularly gravity and friction, as well as some familiarity with kinetic and potential energy. An understanding of Newton's second law of motion and basic motion concepts such as position, velocity and acceleration. Today's lesson is all about roller coasters and the science and engineering behind them.
Before we start talking about physics, though, I'd like you to share some of your experiences with roller coasters. Listen to a few students describe their favorite roller coasters. Point out some of the unique features of each coaster, such as hills and loops, that relate to the lesson.
Does anyone know how roller coasters work? You might think that the roller coaster cars have engines inside them that push them along the track like automobiles.
While that is true of a few roller coasters, most use gravity to move the cars along the track. Do any of you remember riding a roller coaster that started out with a big hill? If you looked closely at the roller coaster track on which the cars move , you would see in the middle of the track on that first hill, a chain. You might have even have felt it "catch" to the cars.
That chain hooks to the bottom of the cars and pulls them to the top of that first hill, which is always the highest point on a roller coaster. Once the cars are at the top of that hill, they are released from the chain and coast through the rest of the track, which is where the name roller coaster comes from. Figure 1. Example setup for quick lesson demo. What do you think would happen if a roller coaster had a hill in the middle of the track that was taller than the first hill of the roller coaster?
Would the cars be able to make it up this bigger hill using just gravity? Conduct a short demonstration to prove the point. Take a piece of foam pipe insulation cut in half lengthwise and shape it into a roller coaster by taping it to classroom objects such as a desktop and a textbook, as shown in Figure 1.
Then, using marbles to represent the cars, show students that the first hill of a roller coaster must be the tallest point or the cars will not reach the end of the track. Refer to the Building Roller Coasters activity for additional instructions. Next, play off other students' roller coaster experiences to move the lesson forward, covering the material provided in the Lesson Background and Vocabulary sections.
For example, talk about the point in the roller coaster where you travel the fastest, how cars make it through loops and corkscrews, and what causes passengers to feel weightless or very heavy at certain points in the roller coaster.
The order in which you teach these points, and possibly more, is not critical to the lesson. Also, it may be more engaging for the students to ask questions based on their experiences with roller coasters and let those questions lead the lesson from one point to the next. All of these points can be demonstrated using the foam tubing and marbles, so use them often to illustrate the lesson concepts.
The underlying principle of all roller coasters is the law of conservation of energy, which describes how energy can neither be lost nor created; energy is only transferred from one form to another. In roller coasters, the two forms of energy that are most important are gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy.
Gravitational potential energy is greatest at the highest point of a roller coaster and least at the lowest point. Kinetic energy is greatest at the lowest point of a roller coaster and least at the highest point. Potential and kinetic energy can be exchanged for one another, so at certain points the cars of a roller coaster may have just potential energy at the top of the first hill , just kinetic energy at the lowest point or some combination of kinetic and potential energy at all other points.
The first hill of a roller coaster is always the highest point of the roller coaster because friction and drag immediately begin robbing the car of energy. At the top of the first hill, a car's energy is almost entirely gravitational potential energy because its velocity is zero or almost zero.
This is the maximum energy that the car will ever have during the ride. That energy can become kinetic energy which it does at the bottom of this hill when the car is moving fast or a combination of potential and kinetic energy like at the tops of smaller hills , but the total energy of the car cannot be more than it was at the top of the first hill.
If a taller hill were placed in the middle of the roller coaster, it would represent more gravitational potential energy than the first hill, so a car would not be able to ascend to the top of the taller hill. Cars in roller coasters always move the fastest at the bottoms of hills. This is related to the first concept in that at the bottom of hills all of the potential energy has been converted to kinetic energy, which means more speed.
Likewise, cars always move the slowest at their highest point, which is the top of the first hill. A web-based simulation demonstrating the relationship between vertical position and the speed of a car in a roller coaster various shapes is provided at the MyPhysicsLab Roller Coaster Physics Simulation. This website provides numerical data for simulated roller coaster of various shapes. Friction exists in all roller coasters, and it takes away from the useful energy provided by roller coaster.
Friction is caused in roller coasters by the rubbing of the car wheels on the track and by the rubbing of air and sometimes water! Friction turns the useful energy of the roller coaster gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy into heat energy, which serves no purpose associated with propelling cars along the track.
Friction is the reason roller coasters cannot go on forever, so minimizing friction is one of the biggest challenges for roller coaster engineers. Friction is also the reason that roller coasters can never regain their maximum height after the initial hill unless a second chain lift is incorporated somewhere on the track.
Cars can only make it through loops if they have enough speed at the top of the loop. While this calculation is too complex for the vast majority of seventh graders, they will intuitively understand that if a car is not moving fast enough at the top of a loop it will fall.
For safety, most roller coasters have wheels on both sides of the track to prevent cars from falling. Most roller coaster loops are not perfectly circular in shape, but have a teardrop shape called a clothoid. Roller coaster designers discovered that if a loop is circular, the rider experiences the greatest force at the bottom of the loop when the cars are moving fastest. After many riders sustained neck injuries, the looping roller coaster was abandoned in and revived only in when Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain became the first modern looping roller coaster using a clothoid shape.
In a clothoid, the radius of curvature of the loop is widest at the bottom, reducing the force on the riders when the cars move fastest, and smallest at the top when the cars are moving relatively slowly. This allowed for a smoother, safer ride and the teardrop shape is now in use in roller coasters around the world.
Riders may experience weightlessness at the tops of hills negative g-forces and feel heavy at the bottoms of hills positive g-forces. This feeling is caused by the change in direction of the roller coaster.
At the top of a roller coaster, the car goes from moving upward to flat to moving downward. This change in direction is known as acceleration and the acceleration makes riders feel as if a force is acting on them, pulling them out of their seats. Similarly, at the bottom of hills, riders go from moving downward to flat to moving upward, and thus feel as if a force is pushing them down into their seats. These forces can be referred to in terms of gravity and are called gravitational forces, or g-forces.
One "g" is the force applied by gravity while standing on Earth at sea level. The human body is used to existing in a 1 g environment. If the acceleration of a roller coaster at the bottom of a hill is equal to the acceleration of gravity 9. If the acceleration at the bottom of the hill is twice the acceleration of gravity, the overall force is 3 gs.
If this acceleration acts instead at the top of a hill, it is subtracted from the standard 1 g. In this way, it can be less than 1 g, and it can even be negative. If the acceleration at the top of a hill were equal to the acceleration of gravity, the overall force would be zero gs. If the acceleration at the top of the hill were twice the acceleration of gravity, the resulting overall force would be negative 1 g.
At zero gs, a rider feels completely weightless and at negative gs, they feel as though a force is lifting them out of the seat. This concept may be too advanced for students, but they should understand the basic principles and where g-forces greater than or less than 1 g can occur, even if they cannot fully relate them to the acceleration of the roller coaster.
Watch this activity on YouTube. Is equal to change in velocity divided by time. The force exerted on an object by the Earth's gravity at sea level. Is equal to 9. In this lesson, we use gravitational potential energy, which is directly related to the height of an object and its mass. The distance that object travels divided by the time it takes. Before the lesson, make sure students have a firm handle on gravity, friction, potential and kinetic energy, and the basics of motion.
This can be done in the form of a short quiz, a warm-up exercise or a brief discussion. Example questions:. Show students a photograph of a roller coaster that includes a hill and a loop.
Part of the physics of a roller coaster is the physics of work and energy. The ride often begins as a chain and motor or other mechanical device exerts a force on the train of cars to lift the train to the top of a very tall hill.
Once the cars are lifted to the top of the hill, gravity takes over and the remainder of the ride is an experience in energy transformation. At the top of the hill, the cars possess a large quantity of potential energy.
Potential energy - the energy of vertical position - is dependent upon the mass of the object and the height of the object. The car's large quantity of potential energy is due to the fact that they are elevated to a large height above the ground.
As the cars descend the first drop they lose much of this potential energy in accord with their loss of height. The cars subsequently gain kinetic energy. Kinetic energy - the energy of motion - is dependent upon the mass of the object and the speed of the object. The train of coaster cars speeds up as they lose height. Thus, their original potential energy due to their large height is transformed into kinetic energy revealed by their high speeds.
As the ride continues, the train of cars are continuously losing and gaining height. Each gain in height corresponds to the loss of speed as kinetic energy due to speed is transformed into potential energy due to height. Each loss in height corresponds to a gain of speed as potential energy due to height is transformed into kinetic energy due to speed. This transformation of mechanical energy from the form of potential to the form of kinetic and vice versa is illustrated in the animation below.
A roller coaster ride also illustrates the work and energy relationship. The work done by external forces is capable of changing the total amount of mechanical energy from an initial value to some final value.
The amount of work done by the external forces upon the object is equal to the amount of change in the total mechanical energy of the object. The relationship is often stated in the form of the following mathematical equation. Once a roller coaster has reached its initial summit and begins its descent through loops, turns and smaller hills, the only forces acting upon the coaster cars are the force of gravity, the normal force and dissipative forces such as air resistance.
The force of gravity is an internal force and thus any work done by it does not change the total mechanical energy of the train of cars.
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