What Are The Physics Of Roller Coasters
Roller coaster are driven almost entirely by basic inertial, gravitational, and centripetal forces. Newton’s 1st law of motion states that an object in motion will remain in motion in a straight line except when acted by an outside force Inertia states that an object at rest stays at rest, and an object moving at constant velocity will remain at constant velocity unless acted upon an outside unbalanced force. Gravity is basically saying what goes up must come back down and as you see in a roller coaster it does not keep going up it comes back down gravity acts upon it. The first hill has the largest amount of gravitational potential energy. When a roller coaster is at the bottom of the first hill, the kinetic energy is at it’s biggest. By
the time the roller coaster gets to the end of the ride it has lost enough energy to come to a stop.
In my model, at each point in the ride the kinetic and potential energy can be calculated using the following equations:
KE = 0.5 *mass* (speed) ^2 PE = mass*g* height
Using a few foam insulations pipes I intended to build a roller coaster model, and using the equation above I will calculate the potential energy and kinetic energy and will see if they change at various point of the roller coaster.
the time the roller coaster gets to the end of the ride it has lost enough energy to come to a stop.
In my model, at each point in the ride the kinetic and potential energy can be calculated using the following equations:
KE = 0.5 *mass* (speed) ^2 PE = mass*g* height
Using a few foam insulations pipes I intended to build a roller coaster model, and using the equation above I will calculate the potential energy and kinetic energy and will see if they change at various point of the roller coaster.