Specifically, how does the weight of the passengers effect how the coaster runs?
For example on a 30 seat roller coaster if there were 30 children weighing 40kg each compared to 30 adults weighing 90kg each would it be the same from a mechanical / physics point of view?
In: 4
The heavier coaster will go faster. Not because of the influence of gravity being all that different though, which it really isn’t. The big difference is that the air resistance at a given speed remains the same no matter how heavy the passengers are, but the train will have more kinetic energy with heavier passengers, hence it will not slow down as quickly under the influence of rolling and air resistance.
In a pure physics world, the weight of the riders makes no difference. If you do the equations, the mass cancels out, and you find that the speed at the bottom of a hill only depends on the height at the top.
In real life, there are more complications, including air resistance, and also weight distribution. It seems that having heavy people at the front of the coaster may cause it to go faster, while having heavy people at the back may cause it to go slower or fail to make it over certain hills. This depends on a lot of variables including the layout of the specific coaster.
Latest Answers