Another engineering question.

Here's another engineering question for the designer-minded coaster fans out there.

Which is the stronger support design: The open-lattice towers that Arrow, Morgan and Intamin use for their hypercoasters? Or the solid columnar support design that B&M uses for their own coasters and hypercoasters?

There is some overlap, of course; Millenium Force, Magnum and the other hypercoasters have their share of solid-column supports, but only for the lower-height parts of the track. It seems that nearly all the hypercoasters, save for B&M's Raging Bull and Apollo's Chariot, use the open-lattice towers. Is this simply company preference, or is there an obvious engineering advantage to using the towers?

An inquiring coaster fan would like to know. :}

-- ArchTeryx
*** This post was edit by ArchTeryx on 12/4/99. ***

One maybe economically cheaper than the other to use.

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At the dawn of the new millennium they all bowed down to CP realizing they lost the war.

I read something about this, but now I can't remember where. The first consideration is height. The long columns are rarely found on anything much taller than 200 feet or so. If you've seen the photos of SFMM's new Goliath, it does not use columns for the lift. Next time you're on the Mantis platform, stand next to the column under the 45-degree turn and watch that thing wiggle even an its relatively low height.

Much of MF is kind of a hybrid, namely in the first and fourth turns.

An important factor on MF is the rigidity of the track. That ride will go extremely far between supports because the track can support itself. Going up that lift and through the first turn on the island is going to be like having nothing under you... very cool!

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point

Another cool thing is that those trains are basically going to be seats on wheels :)

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Daniel J. Haverlock
'99 Magnum Count: 801
Is it May yet?
www.popworld.com/dan

I think the reason for that is the tendance to buckle on long columns. If you use a truss like support you have a whole bunch of smaller columns, and we all know that a short column is alot less likely to buckle than a long one. Does anyone know if the B&M hypers use columns or trusses at their heighest points?

B&M Hypercoasters use columns even at their highest point, and in fact, the lift-hill columns are not the thickest ones used. (Those are supporting the station track)

AT is right...Raging Bull seems to have VERY FEW supports over the whole length of the ride. don't know how they do it...

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"I think I scrambled my brain!!"

Don't forget that the lift for Alpengeist (195 feet) is latice and I beleive itis the only B+M coaster with latice supports. Though not the greatest pictures of the lift, here are some http://www.thrillride.com/Alpengeist/Alpengeist.html

I think the early inverteds (Batman: The Ride at SFGAm and SFGAdv) also use a scaffolding type support and not the columns for the lift.

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Scott W. Short
sshort@mediaone.net
http://welcome.to/midwestcoastercentral

*** This post was edit by ShiveringTim on 12/6/99. ***

The lattice/scaffolding structure on Alpengeist was chosen not for engineering purposes but rather for aesthetics; BGW wanted the lift to look more like a ski lift in order to better fit into the theme (it also drove the cost of the ride up).

Also, B:TR has a lift-hill structure similar to Raptors. While there are crosses braces between the columns, in general that type of structure is not classified as lattice/scaffolding.

I stand corrected. All I remembered of it was that the lift structures wasn't exactly the same as the rest of the ride or other B&M inverted lifts. Basically, the support colums are smaller in diameter. Here's a picture...

http://24.131.53.236/coasterpalooza/d1/MVC-010F.JPG

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Scott W. Short
sshort@mediaone.net
http://welcome.to/midwestcoastercentral

*** This post was edit by ShiveringTim on 12/7/99. ***

I think that B&M is more of an Architectural firm than they choose to let on, being that most of there work has an asthehtic value, and is done for experiance of not only riding it but looking at it, or bening in its presence.

Considering the question from an engineering standpoint, I would think the open lattice design would provide the greatest ultimate strength for the amount of materials used. Consider PT for a moment. The structure has about the same strength as a solid structure of the same overall dimension, but has very little wind load and relatively small mass. The same principal applies to things like I beams and H beams, which are nearly as strong as solid beams with similar overall dimension, but are lighter. They may even be able to bear more weight as a result. This is because structural members tend to carry load at the edges rather than at the center. Therefore, removing material at the center has little effect on strength if done properly. That isn’t to say that columns are weak, as they are clearly very effective (by the way, they too are hollow for the same reason). I’m just pointing out that for large structures, lattice work has advantages in terms of reducing wind load and damping resonance. Anyone who is familiar with the Tacoma Narrows bridge knows what I mean. I think you will find that as rides get even bigger, taller, faster, etc. that the lattice type of construction prevails in the long run.