Violent Space Spiral Swaying?

I'm an engineering student and understand that structures are designed to deflect...however, last night (Friday, 10/26) Space Spiral was seriously moving. I have never seen that thing sway the way it was swaying last night. Has anyone else ever witnessed this, with the tower swaying several feet in both directions? *** Edited 10/28/2007 6:22:00 AM UTC by Craig the Coaster Freak***

I notice the same thing with WT.

I dont check cedar points weather but how windy was it then?

Not very.

The clouds were moving REALLY fast, which can distort how much it was really swaying.

But moving a few feet isn't abnormal.. it was built in Sandusky, i'm sure it can withstand plenty.

It sways, but usually you see the cables moving a lot. On a windy day all you hear is banging when the cabin is at the bottom of the tower.

All the rides sway a little bit (they have to). TTD sways a whole lot as well as WT. The rest are just to big to really see.

Not there, but I heard about this from several friends that went yesterday. They said they had seen it move before, but it really seemed to be pushing the limits.

Are they engineers? I doubt it, and even if they are, they didn't design the ride. This comes up all the time about a countless number of rides. It's not going to fall over.

Yeah yeah yeah... Different friends from different circles don't tell me the same thing if it was normal swaying like the top of WT. They were honestly concerned.

Speaking of WT, it swayed like crazy its first year, people said nothing was wrong. They were wrong.

I don't doubt they were concerned. I just doubt they know what they're talking about. I hear people in line all the time asking, "Is it suposed to move like that?"

Space Spiral has been there for over 40 years. If something was wrong, I'm sure they'd shut the ride down.

*** Edited 10/27/2007 10:52:43 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

CPboy77 said:
I notice the same thing with WT.

If it didn't it would collapse..

I heard this on a Discovery channel special about amusement park rides and they said that they all must be made to withstand winds up to 125 MPH.

^It's different for every park.

As for WT, there is a lot more to factor into the addition of the yellow supports than just wind.

I find it amusing when people say "it's supposed to do that" or "if it didn't, it would fall over" as if they are the authority on amusement ride safety because they know that. The OP is an engineering student, so he obviously has some background in the field, and his story was backed up by a few other people. Unless you were there to see it, it's absurd to shoot the guy down for it. I seem to recall a ride that used to sit next to Magnum that actually did fall over, so I wouldn't call it impossible for a ride to fall over no matter how unlikely it is.

Just an update:

While I am just a student, my buddy is a practicing civil engineer and he told me that the movement seemed abnormal. What we noticed was that the cabin was parked in the middle of the tower yesterday, raising the tower's center of gravity which probably led to the swaying. Tonight, the cabin was parked at the bottom of the tower and the tower was not visibly swaying. I know that they almost always park the cabin in the middle, but are they supposed to park it at the bottom in windy conditions?

Apparently some of you don't structure that has been at the park since the 60s. Vertigo didn't even last 6 months, so don't go there and there were still other things involved.

The cabin parking in the middle is to the cabin and counterweight balanced.

Like I said in another topic, check out TTD's pull in/out sections after a train passes by. Also look straight up at the tower on Magnum's exit ramp. The tower sways left to right, back and forth all day long.

Civil engineer or not, CP has seen very high winds in the past. A tornado even went through the park back in the 70s. I think Space Spiral is in good shape.

^ Chill Sparky.

Just because a structure stands for 60 years doesn't mean anything.

You're beating to death a point people already know. We told you several times, we know things are supposed to sway. It's nothing new.

Also... no one yet has claimed that Space Spiral is in bad shape or falling down. Just making observations. Its nothing to get upset about.

The I-35 Mississippi River Bridge opened in the 60's as well. You can't say something won't collapse just because it's been there for a long time. I'm not saying Space Spiral is going to collapse, but just because it's old doesn't mean it won't. *** Edited 10/28/2007 4:36:23 PM UTC by halltd***

So the causeway is getting kind of old, I think it might just sink into the ground.

And as for no one saying it was in bad shape, you yourself said it was "pushing the limits". *** Edited 10/28/2007 6:05:30 PM UTC by Gomez***

The wind was oppressive Friday night and most of Saturday. Yes, it was swaying, and I've seen it do that before. I wouldn't worry much about it.

Oscillations of a structure aren't always a bad thing.

When an oscillation has an excessive amplitude, it can take a structure down. The tocoma narrows bridge collapse is a perfect example of that. The amplitude of the oscillations got very large. In fact, they got so large that the 8' tall girders fatigued and seperated.

There is a dampening force that opposes the oscillation of a structure. This force usually comes in wind resistance and energy tranfered to heat as the structure flexes. As the amplitude of the oscillations become larger, the dampening force also becomes larger. At some point the force causing the oscillations will average out with the dampening force and the amplitude of deflection will have reached its max. From there, the internal forces on the structure can be analyzed.

It could be found that at some constant wind speed, the structure would be excessively fatiqued. In that case something different could be changed to handle the situation better such as thicker walls, stronger steel, more/heavier fasteners and in some cases, a structure redesign.

Space Spiral does sway quite a bit. I think it's pretty neat to look up the tower from the base while it's swaying. It can get away with this because of the ratio between the diameter of the stucture and it's height. It's pretty tall for it's diameter which means that it would require a huge amount of deflection to reach the steel's yield point. It doesn't even come close to that point. In Fact, the design of Space Spiral has shown over the years to be good. It also has been maintained well and is structurally in pretty decent shape.

I wish that I could say the same for the bridges in the United States. Our infrastructure used to be the envy of the world. Now it's becoming second rate. In 2006 the Federal Highway Administration of the US Department of Transportation (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/) found 73,764 bridges to be structurally deficient in the US. This is including 2,884 in Ohio and the I-35 mississippi river bridge.