Fury 325

Jeff:

The purge is easier when people out themselves as ultimately stupid.

Considering your the admin of this site, are you saying a purge of user's; or "The Purge" as in the anarchical anything goes and people get away with murder; that reads to me that you're saying people with x viewpoint shouldn't continue sucking air.

And I'm not going to pick sides here because anyone publicly saying that people who don't agree with them should die I would hope is universally revolting. This is your site and you can manage the userbase as you wish if that's what you mean as the purge, but that post really doesn't sit well with me because that's not how it seems to read.

Dispatch Master and TTD 120mph both have interesting additions to the conversation though. Thank you.

Edit: DVO very good point about either over cautious guests causing excessive downtime or a systematic issue in support's. It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

I would ask anyone throwing names or labels to reconsider what they post....but I'm not a moderator. I certainly wouldn't label some people on here "Trumptards" but I won't shy from the fact that I would label some of the stuff I've read here as ignorant. Of course, we're all ignorant of something at least once in life. The best we can do is be as educated on the subject as possible and listen/trust people who really know more about the subject than we do. Talking heads or people who only regurgitate the stuff we think we want to hear is never wise.

Personally, I don't care if you're someone who believes the pandemic/covid-19 is a hoax or the vaccine causes ___________. I vehemently disagree with that viewpoint but I also understand those with hesitant tendencies. I follow the science and listen to the (real) experts....where ever that may lead.

Same goes for Fury. I'm going to trust the park and engineers to fix it and learn from the incident to prevent something worse from happening.

The weld was bad and/or the footer moved. No other B&M with the same style of supports has had a failure like this. It's a one off occurrence unique to that particular support.

On my mind now is: how are rollercoasters better monitored for this type of failure in the future? Or rather, do they need to improve it?

The low/no tech solution would be more thorough and frequent visual inspections by humans. You could go high tech with that method by incorporating drones to fly a programmed flight every day then use machine vision software to detect any anomalies that would then be inspected by a human.

Sensors could be installed on the track and/or supports that would trigger warnings if they record a value outside the acceptable range.

Alternatively, and most likely, business as normal continues (save for maybe more frequent visual inspection). It's extremely unlikely one failed connection in the structure of a rollercoaster will cause a catastrophic failure that will cause death or injury to riders. So much would have to go wrong before it would get to that point.

Agreed, in order to establish a pattern, you need more than one instance of the thing. Considering that there's one instance of this on one B&M out of more than a hundred rides, there is no pattern. Among corrective measures, I imagine there are some new inspections they might do, but I don't see any evidence of doing so just for B&M rides. If this really turns out to be related to a sunken footer, perhaps there will be yearly surveying to see if they've moved at all (if they don't already do this periodically).

TwistedCircuits:

if that's what you mean as the purge

First off, that's a word that predates movies, which I'm sure you know, and it's mostly used to indicate the emptying of a thing.

Second, I'd like to think that there's a pretty real difference between the average Qanon wacko and someone with differing politics. The latter exists and have been part of these communities since the start. Even recently we had a relatively new member willing to have a discussion about some political issues, and that led to understanding if not acceptance, and that's fine.

But if someone is going to come here and drop some 4chan nonsense, I'm not going to lose any sleep over immediately deleting their account.

Am I imagining things, but wasn't there a coaster builder that would make all the support columns pressure vessels? Each column had a pressure sensing device that could shut down a ride if the pressure dropped below a certain threshhold (have to take into consideration expansion and contraction due to fluctuating temps).

I'm pretty sure Skyscraper did something like that, where the arms were pressurized. Although I can't find anything in a 5 minute search.

That might have been something done on the Disney rides; I know at one point they were using one rail for an electrical conduit and the other as pneumatic plumbing, but I think that practice has been largely abandoned.

I saw what Ryan the Ride Mechanic had to say about Fury and about that footer changing position, but what bothers me about that theory is that the structural member in question is in tension, which would tend to *lift* that footer; that is, the footer is not seeing a significant downward force when the train goes through. I'm more inclined to think this is a simple cycling fatigue issue. But let me also point out that I am not an engineer and I know very little about the loads and strengths stuff.

What I do know is that repairs on things like this are possible. While I do expect that the support section will probably end up being replaced, I won't be surprised if the park welds it back together and gets it running again sooner rather than later. The gussets welded onto the support over the last couple of days seem to support that theory.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan:

...the structural member in question is in tension, which would tend to *lift* that footer; that is, the footer is not seeing a significant downward force when the train goes through.

Bear in mind that I may not be following your theory correctly, but the train only passes by that support for a very short time relative to the duration of the ride just sitting there, during which the support and footer are supporting the mass of the support (and some amount of track) in compression. So it's basically always in compression if the footer is properly supported from beneath.

However, if we assume there were some void or low density volume beneath that footer resulting in a lack of support beneath it, it is true that the support member would be in tension, because the footer would otherwise settle to a lower elevation if not for the rest of the ride structure holding it in place. This would have created a tensile load in excess of the design intent, and potentially in excess of the tensile strength of the member. Add a handful of cyclic loading, a dash of stress concentration at the weld seam, and that's a recipe for failure. And in that scenario it's plausible the failure of that member would result in that footer falling some distance, resulting in the gap we see when the ride is at rest.

I do agree that it looks like they're going to weld it back together, given the gussets include a gap at the break presumably to provide access for the repair. Screenshot below taken begrudgingly from this video. However, it appears that the gap left by the break isn't a uniform size, which would indicate something isn't where it was when originally built. Of course it's hard to discern from the video, it could be an issue of perspective.

Patiently waiting for the free-body diagram to show up in this thread.

Right hand rule!

These were welded to stabilize the track and support while engineering completes their failure analysis. The track was completely unsupported due to the break. This area is known for summer thunderstorms and high winds. As of now this welding was done only to stabilize the track and prevent fatigue on the track and other supports.

All things are subject to change. However, as of this moment there are NO plans to weld the support. Replacement is what is being discussed.

Failure analysis is being done by engineering--B&M, CF and CSF.

No repairs will be made or replacements made until the failure mode is completely understood, replicated in simulations and then repair / replacements completed.

Fury 325 will not be re-opening as fast as some predict.

I am not directly privy to the ongoing failure analysis. Based on what I know, my personal opinion is the initial support welding during manufacture resulted in a hairline fatigue crack in the weld itself that propagated into a complete fracture.

I feel very confident stating this is a totally one off failure and totally unprecedented. I suspect you will never see another similar issue in this or any other B&M coaster. Other B&Ms much older and much higher cycles have not shown any concerning trends industrywide.

I can state with certainty the pictures some have posted on the internet alleging cracks in the tracks and B&M tracks in general is simply dirt that has gotten wet and formed a line. It's very common on all structures there is dirt and pollution--basically grime--and now that folks are hypersentive this grime is being mistaken as cracks. Absolutely not true. Just grime.

Keep riding.

Carowinds says new column on site next week...

https://www.carowinds.com/blog/media-center/official-statement-fury-325

Gosh I wish we were talking about Fury at cedar point.

iFixThings:

I am not directly privy to the ongoing failure analysis. Based on what I know, my personal opinion is the initial support welding during manufacture resulted in a hairline fatigue crack in the weld itself that propagated into a complete fracture.

I'm no expert of course, but why would the failure mode you describe result in the sizeable gap between the top piece of the support and the remaining section?

Brandon I'm not an expert either but I would suspect it went past elastic and into plastic deformation during cycling. That is, the track was cycled enough without support that it had start to warp enough to notice the separation from the support. Going back to different unplanned stress loads on the track and nearby supports. It worked and thankfully everyone ok, but the ride was starting to move from normal under the repeated loading.

It's been... checks watch... 22 years since my last Materials Science and Engineering class, but as I recall, if the track has been deformed beyond the elastic limit (point A below) the steel properties have irreversibly changed, such that the same or lower amount of stress (force per cross sectional area; starting at point B below) results in the same or greater amount of strain (change in dimension resulting from stress). I would imagine this scenario would require replacement of the affected sections of track, rather than just the support.

Also, again with the caveat that I've not studied this stuff in a long time, my recollection (and intuition based on bending stuff) is that steel can handle a lot of elastic deformation before going plastic. The few inches we've seen in the video doesn't seem sufficient to me.

If the "sinking footer" theory holds, then that would explain the gap too. If anything, it's possible that the track was being pulled down. Regardless, the flex in that now infamous video doesn't look completely out of line with what I've seen on some steel rides. That's just eyeballing though, I could be wrong.

Also, I keep seeing people say "the weld failed." Someone else can speak more knowledgeably about this, but what I've learned about ship building is that the welds are actually stronger than the surrounding base material. That's why you can cut a ship in half to renovate the guts, and they're built in block sections. To that end, you can't see in that photo, but I bet the failure is above the weld, not the weld itself.

Not all welds are perfect though as all kinds of things can go wrong with them. I am with you - I would like a better picture of where the weld is to see if it indeed could be in play.

Usually when a crack forms on a weld it's because there is some inflection or discontinuity in the weld which serves as a starting point for crack formation.

As a general rule, if you see a potentially repairable crack forming in a piece of steel, the first thing you should do is grab a drill and drill holes in the ends of the crack. That's because the radius provided by the drill eliminates the "sharp" edge at the end of the crack that encourages crack propagation. That tiny hole you drill will usually stop the crack from progressing.

What we see with the Fury support is that the crack may have started at the top of that junction weld between the vertical and diagonal tubing, and propagated outward horizontally from that point through the unwelded tubing. I've seen this pattern before, and it may be similar to the problem that was explained to me in context of an Eyerly Spider...well, here, I have a page from the 1974 bulletin (since updated, but this shows the detail)--

My understanding is that when these things were built, that teardrop gusset was welded from the tip of the teardrop A, along the edge of the gusset and down to the attachment plate, then a second weld was done on the other side. The result was that right at point A, where those two welds meet, hairline cracks would form, propagating out from the inside of the tube right at the tip of the gusset, running perpendicular to the length of the tube, and eventually breaking the sweep in half at that point. These were not bad welds, and when new they would hold up to magnetic particle or dye penetrant NDT. But they still offered a point where a crack could...and would...start. As I understand it, the repair process was to start welding at the base of the sweep and lay a continuous bead all the way around the gusset, eliminating the inflection point A where two welds meet.

On Fury, though, the situation is a little more difficult, in that the weld on that tube connection is "circular" and the weld goes all the way around. Having some point where the ends of the weld meet is unavoidable. Knowing what little bit that I do, I wouldn't be surprised if that weld started right at the top of the oval...right where the crack formed.

I'm not saying someone at Clermont messed up. Far from it. It's just that the existence of a potential inflection point there, combined with the cyclic loading of the structure, makes that a logical place for a crack to form.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.