![]() ![]() The Incredible Hulk at Universal’s Islands of Adventure features a rapidly accelerating uphill launch using powerful traction (or friction) wheel motors to get the trains going from zero to forty miles per hour in two seconds. Flywheel: A flywheel works by accelerating a rotor to a very high speed and maintaining the energy in the system as rotational energy.įriction Wheel Launch: Incredible Hulk (1999-2015).Capacitor: A device used to store an electric charge, consisting of one or more pairs of conductors separated by an insulator.Charge: In general, charge Q is determined by steady current I flowing for a time t as Q = It.Amp: The SI unit for measuring an electric current is the ampere, which is the flow of electric charge.Let’s take a look at a few different coasters to see what strategies we think they use to store energy for their launch system. Compare that to the high energy launch systems that may require 4,000 or more Amps for approximately five seconds of launch time! How much energy are we talking about here? For example, the average lift hill motor could use approximately 200 Amps for sixty seconds to lift a train to the point of release at the top of a hill. Potential energy is commonly stored as electricity, hydraulic fluid, or compressed air before it is transferred very rapidly to the train via a propulsion system and converted into kinetic energy. The job of the roller coaster engineers is to get energy from a power grid or storage source and transfer it to the coaster in the most efficient way possible. Launched coasters have always required a very high amount of power for the launch, which either required an expensive high-capacity electrical service which is drawn heavily on when you launch, or the use of a device to store energy from a lower capacity service. ![]() But what happens before or in-between the launches? Launch systems, from electromagnets, pneumatics, hydraulics,and friction wheels, generally use a ridiculous amount of energy, but where does that energy come from? In our earlier article where we examined the different types of roller coaster launch systems, we saw how the energy is transferred to the coaster trains in different ways. Even wood coasters are getting in on the game. Launched coasters are becoming more and more common. In this edition of Coasters-101 we’re going to examine how launch coasters store their energy. ![]()
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