The Smiler Incident 02/06/15

General discussion regarding the UK's No.1 Theme Park. Talk about anything and everything Alton Towers here.
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Ripsaw Raver
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surely that using 2 rows of 4 would give it less speed, yes its got less weight but that extra weight adds to extra speed surely. If the ride was designed for 4 cars trains then i should say it needs 4 car trains. I think one of these three might be the way forward (1)the trims will removed,(2) The trims will be altered so less friction on the train, (3) Possible very subtle LSMs on the trim hill resulting in TheSmiler never(hopefully) being able to loose enough speed to stall in the batwing ever again
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gee
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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/al ... on-5916559" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The mirror are at it again, taking statements out of context
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118hazaman
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Themeparksandy1981 wrote:I think they could be forced to just use the trains as 2 rows of 4. But like someone else said they could have 2 loading areas.
What would this solve? It wouldn't change anything safety wise, and as rightly said above the ride would not be able to function with the lack of momentum. It's just not possible.
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Adam.W
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118hazaman wrote:
Themeparksandy1981 wrote:I think they could be forced to just use the trains as 2 rows of 4. But like someone else said they could have 2 loading areas.
What would this solve? It wouldn't change anything safety wise, and as rightly said above the ride would not be able to function with the lack of momentum. It's just not possible.
Why would they do this? It won't make any difference, in fact, it would probably make it more likely to stall in bad weather as the train is lighter, therefore easier to 'blow backwards'.

It really isn't worth it; reduces throughput, costs money to adjust blocks, loading, sensors etc, would look daft, and it would be too fast for the track, it would create lateral g's in some inversions as the ride would have been designed to go slower.
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118hazaman
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sum1mad wrote: ...it would be too fast for the track, it would create lateral g's in some inversions as the ride would have been designed to go slower.
This is technically incorrect. On paper both a 4 row cart and a 2 row cart would have the same maximum speed as all objects accelerate towards the ground at a speed of 9.81 metres per second per second. However, the 4 row cart would have a larger kinetic energy and would therefore resist friction more than a 2 row cart. So in practice you often find that heavier cars will complete the circuit faster than lighter ones. This is shown by the fact that AT use weighted dummies in tests, to ensure that the cart travels fast enough to complete the circuit without stalling.
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In addition to all of these points, it would just end up putting more carriages on the track. This would fail to make accidents less likely.
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Very good to read that Merlin are already making interim payouts to the affected passengers on The Smiler. I naturally wish them all well in their recoveries.

One change I can see coming in from the HSE investigation... after any "Block Fault" shutdown, the position of all trains has to be visually confirmed by sight by Alton Towers staff. No relying on CCTV - get out there and see where the trains actually are. There could doubtless be "block confirm" buttons installed that have to be pressed on the track block in question to confirm to the ride computer where the trains are.

This will invariably lead to longer wait times to reset any errors, but in the long term, safety is more important than queue times.
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http://news.sky.com/story/1505306/alton ... ver-reopen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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I hope they don't close it forever :(
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A bit of good news, according to the bbc, joe Pugh has been released from hospital.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stok ... e-33243629
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That is good news, hope the 2 women can follow suit asap and the recovery for everyone is as swift as possible
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The smiler has now been removed from the ride times list on the AT app. NST is also gone from the app. Really hope this is not a sign of the ride going.
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http://www.expressandstar.com/news/loca ... rs-bosses/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Genieuk
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Fauls alarm. It's back on there again. Must have been a glitch as it wasn't showing on my partners phone too.
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118hazaman wrote:
sum1mad wrote: ...it would be too fast for the track, it would create lateral g's in some inversions as the ride would have been designed to go slower.
This is technically incorrect. On paper both a 4 row cart and a 2 row cart would have the same maximum speed as all objects accelerate towards the ground at a speed of 9.81 metres per second per second. However, the 4 row cart would have a larger kinetic energy and would therefore resist friction more than a 2 row cart. So in practice you often find that heavier cars will complete the circuit faster than lighter ones. This is shown by the fact that AT use weighted dummies in tests, to ensure that the cart travels fast enough to complete the circuit without stalling.
That correction is also incorrect. Objects do in fact accelerate at the same rate under the influence of gravity at 9.81m/s but this has nothing to do with the objects terminal velocity, acceleration due to gravity just tells you how quickly the object reaches its terminal velocity, the objects actual terminal velocity is different. The 2 row car would have a different terminal velocity to the 4 row car. Otherwise what you're saying here is that all roller coasters independent of train size and weight would all have the same speed which is incorrect. Also you don't accelerate with a speed of you accelerate at a rate of. I know this isn't a physics forum but please try not to post facts if they are not indeed facts. The mass of the object contributes to the kinetic energy and momentum of each train but the velocity of the train is independent of the mass any object of any mass can travel at any speed given it has enough driving force. (Physics A-level student)
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TheSmilerMan wrote:
118hazaman wrote:
sum1mad wrote: ...it would be too fast for the track, it would create lateral g's in some inversions as the ride would have been designed to go slower.
This is technically incorrect. On paper both a 4 row cart and a 2 row cart would have the same maximum speed as all objects accelerate towards the ground at a speed of 9.81 metres per second per second. However, the 4 row cart would have a larger kinetic energy and would therefore resist friction more than a 2 row cart. So in practice you often find that heavier cars will complete the circuit faster than lighter ones. This is shown by the fact that AT use weighted dummies in tests, to ensure that the cart travels fast enough to complete the circuit without stalling.
That correction is also incorrect. Objects do in fact accelerate at the same rate under the influence of gravity at 9.81m/s but this has nothing to do with the objects terminal velocity, acceleration due to gravity just tells you how quickly the object reaches its terminal velocity, the objects actual terminal velocity is different. The 2 row car would have a different terminal velocity to the 4 row car. Otherwise what you're saying here is that all roller coasters independent of train size and weight would all have the same speed which is incorrect. Also you don't accelerate with a speed of you accelerate at a rate of. I know this isn't a physics forum but please try not to post facts if they are not indeed facts. The mass of the object contributes to the kinetic energy and momentum of each train but the velocity of the train is independent of the mass any object of any mass can travel at any speed given it has enough driving force. (Physics A-level student)
I think we can all agree that it is slightly more complex than 2-car-fast/1-car-slow. There are several forces at play, not just acceleration due to gravity, that all contribute to the overall effect eg air resistance, friction, acceleration (around track elements), etc. The key difference, that I can see (I'm an engineer, but I must admit that I studied spacecraft at uni, not rollercoasters) is that the air resistance is broadly the same for a given train irrespective of the total mass, whereas all the other forces are related to the mass. This would explain how an empty train has a higher chance of stalling than one, say, loaded with water dummies.
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Saw: The Ride is testing today.... could this be part of the investigations??
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Dan
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SPAD wrote:Saw: The Ride is testing today.... could this be part of the investigations??
I imagine it will be related.

They are probably either trying to replicate the sequence of events that led to The Smiler incident or testing new safety protocols as a result of the ongoing investigation.

Does anyone know if HSE have been running The Smiler since 10th June or was it just for the one day?
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I'm off to Thorpe on Sunday, although I have no doubt it'll still be closed I'll keep my eye out and update on anything I see :)
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TheSmilerMan wrote:
118hazaman wrote:
sum1mad wrote: ...it would be too fast for the track, it would create lateral g's in some inversions as the ride would have been designed to go slower.
This is technically incorrect. On paper both a 4 row cart and a 2 row cart would have the same maximum speed as all objects accelerate towards the ground at a speed of 9.81 metres per second per second. However, the 4 row cart would have a larger kinetic energy and would therefore resist friction more than a 2 row cart. So in practice you often find that heavier cars will complete the circuit faster than lighter ones. This is shown by the fact that AT use weighted dummies in tests, to ensure that the cart travels fast enough to complete the circuit without stalling.
That correction is also incorrect. Objects do in fact accelerate at the same rate under the influence of gravity at 9.81m/s but this has nothing to do with the objects terminal velocity, acceleration due to gravity just tells you how quickly the object reaches its terminal velocity, the objects actual terminal velocity is different. The 2 row car would have a different terminal velocity to the 4 row car. Otherwise what you're saying here is that all roller coasters independent of train size and weight would all have the same speed which is incorrect. Also you don't accelerate with a speed of you accelerate at a rate of. I know this isn't a physics forum but please try not to post facts if they are not indeed facts. The mass of the object contributes to the kinetic energy and momentum of each train but the velocity of the train is independent of the mass any object of any mass can travel at any speed given it has enough driving force. (Physics A-level student)
:words:

I'll appreciate your enthusiasm, but you're both sort of wrong and sort of right.I made a post about this on NLE explaining what the differences between car sizes and dummies might do. It's basically only just down to testing track stress. A 2 row and 4 row car would realistically have very similar maximum velocities, they do not operate at such speeds that terminal velocities would be considered. Drag & sons are all related to surface areas, not masses. As drag is a force however, it'll have a greater effect on lower masses than higher ones, meaning a dummyless car will have a greater decrease in acceleration than that of a weighted car.

(2nd Year Physics undergraduate @ Edinburgh Uni )

This isn't a physics thread anyway..
I can't wait for the Smiler to reopen, but at the same time I really, really don't want the thing rethemed. It's realistic as right now the theme completely makes the ride considerably more horrifying, but my god if I didn't fall in love with its insanity. I can't see what they could do.
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