Does High Speed Or High Acceleration Provide The Biggest Thrill On An Amusement Park Ride?

It is not necessarily high speed or high acceleration that creates a thrill for the amusement park patron but instead it is the forces applied to the body during a ride – forces created by high speed and acceleration. On amusement park rides there are two main forces acting on your body that you noticeably feel and enjoy. These forces are g force and centripetal force.

When a body is at a constant velocity all forces are in equilibrium. Imagine a car on the highway travelling at a constant velocity. We can say that after taking account of internal friction and the rolling resistance of the tyres we have an amount of thrust (force) that is equal to the amount of aerodynamic drag (force). Imagine now, that this car accelerates. At present your body should be experiencing 1G. This means that in our present gravitational environment all objects, if not already experiencing a normal force say, of the ground, will accelerate at 9.8m/s². If the car accelerates in a forward direction at 9.8m/s² you will feel a force equal to that of gravity, 1G, pushing you back into your seat. The difference here is that this force is

A body can experience negative Gs on an amusement park ride also. This happens when a body accelerates toward the earth at a rate equal or more than that of gravity. When a person travels downward on a roller coaster at 9.8m/s² there will be no normal force from the roller coaster car acting on them – they are in a zero G environment. To experience negative 1G, the roller coaster needs to go over a hill. On climbing the hill the roller coaster need s to accelerate at a rate of 9.8m/s² then when the roller coaster goes over the peak of the hill it will change direction and the human body will experience negative 1G. This is because of inertia – all objects “want” to remain travelling at the same rate and in the same direction. When the roller coaster goes over the hill the body will “want” to keep travelling upward. It would take a force equal to how many negative Gs (1) multiplied by the weight of your body to hold you down. A 70kg person would need a harness exerting a force equal to 70kg to keep them in their seat were their body experiencing negative 1G. Instead of your bodily weight being drawn down toward the Earth it will be drawn out in the same direction that your body was originally travelling in. This too seems very unnatural and very thrilling.

working on your body horizontally as well as vertically. If you double the rate of acceleration to 19.6m/s²,

Then there is centripetal force. Centripetal force is created by inertia. Imagine a roller coaster loop. The car is travelling toward it. The track starts to bend upward. The car “wants” to keep travelling forward, but the track exerts a normal force upward. The roller coaster car will travel up the track and around the loop. In order to apply a centripetal force equal to one G at the top of the loop the car needs to still be accelerating at a rate of 9.8m/s². As the car moves up the loop it

Some topics in this essay:
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