Belleville Roller Coaster

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Roller coasters are originated from Russian ice slides in the seventeenth century throughout Russia. The ice slide’s structure was built out of lumber with a sheet of ice several inches thick covering the surface. Moving on, there are some dispute as to who added wheels to the equation and who created the rollercoaster between the Russians and French. In 1817, it is known that two coasters were built in France called the Les Montagues a Belleville and Promenades Aeriennes, both of which featured cars that locked to the track in some manner. It is said that Belleville’s ride was the first roller coaster to lock the cars to the track and were designed so that the axle of each car fit into an open area carved in the side of the track. The Aerial …show more content…

They exert a force on the train of cars to lift the train to the top of a vary hill. Once lifted, gravity takes over. The remainder of the ride is an experience in energy conversion. The car is pulled to the top of the first hill at the beginning of the ride, but after that the coaster must complete the ride on its own. You aren't being propelled around the track by a motor or pulled by a hitch. The conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy is what drives the roller coaster, and all of the kinetic energy you need for the ride is present once the coaster descends the first …show more content…

The force of gravity is an internal force and any work done by it doesn’t change the total mechanical energy of the train of the cars. The normal force of the track pushing up on the cars is an external force. Air resistance is capable of doing work upon the cars and drains a small amount of energy from the total mechanical energy which the cars possess. However, due to the complexity of this force and its small contribution to the large quantity of energy possessed by the cars it is often neglected, and by neglecting the influence of air resistance, it can be said that the total mechanical energy of the train of the cars is conserved during the ride. That is to say, the total amount of mechanical energy possessed by the cars is the same throughout the ride, and energy is neither gained or lost, it’s only transformed from kinetic energy to potential

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