oriolat2
Giga Poster
Welcome to 1995 and Space Mountain xD
Will any other types of launches be invented in the future?
- Thread starter EDjanaika
- Start date
Welcome to 1995 and Space Mountain xD
Google to the rescue!
Somebody apparently found out that a hamster on a wheel generates 0.5 Joules per second. Or half a watt:
How Many Hamsters Would it Take to Power Your Home and Would This Be Cheaper Than Coal Power?
Jeremy A. asks: How many hamsters running on electricity generating wheels would it take to provide enough energy for an average American household? Would this be cheaper than coal electricity? While the question of hamsters powering homes may seem a bit farcical, it should be noted that at one...
www.todayifoundout.com
Meanwhile, Kingda Ka's launch motor provides a peak power output of 15.5 MW:
Kingda Ka - Wikipedia
So the quick answer, with the launch being directly powered by the hamster wheel, and ignoring a few friction losses and the possibility of using flywheels or capacitor banks to build up energy over time and release it quickly when needed, would be 31 million hamsters.
roomraider
Best Topic Starter
Google to the rescue!
Somebody apparently found out that a hamster on a wheel generates 0.5 Joules per second. Or half a watt:
How Many Hamsters Would it Take to Power Your Home and Would This Be Cheaper Than Coal Power?
Jeremy A. asks: How many hamsters running on electricity generating wheels would it take to provide enough energy for an average American household? Would this be cheaper than coal electricity? While the question of hamsters powering homes may seem a bit farcical, it should be noted that at one...
Meanwhile, Kingda Ka's launch motor provides a peak power output of 15.5 MW:
Kingda Ka - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
So the quick answer, with the launch being directly powered by the hamster wheel, and ignoring a few friction losses and the possibility of using flywheels or capacitor banks to build up energy over time and release it quickly when needed, would be 31 million hamsters.
According to Google the stimated population of Hamsters is 57million. So we could only build 1 of these rides.
FistedColossus
Hyper Poster
Could get the Rats involved too tbf. There are a lot more than 57 million of them.
Some of the responses to this thread are the best gold I’ve read in a while! As @Hixee mentioned, much launch tech is repurposed from other applications, be it launching fighter planes from aircraft carriers to the modern electric car motor (essentially an LSM in a circle). It does help to look around the transportation sector to see what other new inventions could be repurposed:
- Near-Vacuum LSM - this is the technic used by the Hyperloop to achieve higher speeds - massive fans generate a low-pressure environment that allows for higher speed/acceleration thanks to reduced air drag. You could repurpose this same application for an indoor launching coaster, as the LSM array/track design would be virtually the same.
This kinda goes back to the cannon idea; creating a tight envelop around the train can allow things to go really fast!
- Track Section Launches - what about rather than launching the train, we launched the track itself? We are already in the midst of this type of innovation, going back to Thi3teen pioneering a vertical drop track section 10 years ago, and other manufacturers already using lowspeed electric motors for track switching/transferring. So, what if a track were to be launched at higher speeds, with the train secured? Think of this as next level thematic story telling; rather than vertically dropping down, the track could be launched sideways, forwards, any direction spinning, etc.
One could take this even further to launching the train outside of the track. Disney's biggest breakthroughs for their attractions to date are their trackless designs (Rise of the Resistance, Ratatouille, Haunted Manor); again going back to Elon Musk, the Boring Company has piloted high speed autonomous driving; essentially putting training wheels on a Tesla to drive at 100+ MPH in a tunnel with ~6 inches wiggle room. What if these same training wheels could be affixed to wheel assemblies on a train, allowing for a trackless section of the ride, complete with "launch"?
- Regenerative Braking - I mean the EV professional wasn't going to let this one slip by, right?
A really cool featuring about magnetic motors, they can act as a brake as much as a motor. The act of magnetic braking at present is to simply slow the train by having onboard magnets pass by magnets/steel segments it is attracted to; essentially letting the energy naturally disperse. Assuming a train is entering the brakes with enough steam coughOrioncough, there could be enough kinetic energy to make a regenerative brake sensible, allowing the capture of energy, converting it back into electricity. Electricity can simply be sent back to the electrical grid, or stored locally for reuse on another launch, lighting, etc. There are a lot of reasons why this off-the-shelf tech hasn't been employed in coasters, mainly economics and having any sense of an ROI - but the application could happen!
- Near-Vacuum LSM - this is the technic used by the Hyperloop to achieve higher speeds - massive fans generate a low-pressure environment that allows for higher speed/acceleration thanks to reduced air drag. You could repurpose this same application for an indoor launching coaster, as the LSM array/track design would be virtually the same.
This kinda goes back to the cannon idea; creating a tight envelop around the train can allow things to go really fast!
- Track Section Launches - what about rather than launching the train, we launched the track itself? We are already in the midst of this type of innovation, going back to Thi3teen pioneering a vertical drop track section 10 years ago, and other manufacturers already using lowspeed electric motors for track switching/transferring. So, what if a track were to be launched at higher speeds, with the train secured? Think of this as next level thematic story telling; rather than vertically dropping down, the track could be launched sideways, forwards, any direction spinning, etc.
One could take this even further to launching the train outside of the track. Disney's biggest breakthroughs for their attractions to date are their trackless designs (Rise of the Resistance, Ratatouille, Haunted Manor); again going back to Elon Musk, the Boring Company has piloted high speed autonomous driving; essentially putting training wheels on a Tesla to drive at 100+ MPH in a tunnel with ~6 inches wiggle room. What if these same training wheels could be affixed to wheel assemblies on a train, allowing for a trackless section of the ride, complete with "launch"?
- Regenerative Braking - I mean the EV professional wasn't going to let this one slip by, right?
A really cool featuring about magnetic motors, they can act as a brake as much as a motor. The act of magnetic braking at present is to simply slow the train by having onboard magnets pass by magnets/steel segments it is attracted to; essentially letting the energy naturally disperse. Assuming a train is entering the brakes with enough steam coughOrioncough, there could be enough kinetic energy to make a regenerative brake sensible, allowing the capture of energy, converting it back into electricity. Electricity can simply be sent back to the electrical grid, or stored locally for reuse on another launch, lighting, etc. There are a lot of reasons why this off-the-shelf tech hasn't been employed in coasters, mainly economics and having any sense of an ROI - but the application could happen!
The Undead Creature
Mega Poster
- Regenerative Braking - I mean the EV professional wasn't going to let this one slip by, right?
This is why I think LSM systems will dominate for a long time to come.
Even flat rides with regular rotary motors now have variable frequency drives that have the option to feed braking power into a capacitor for later use, rather than sending it through a resistor grid to be bled off as heat.
LSM's are just as effective at stopping a train as they are at un-stopping one.
Oh and if you plan to put together a magnetic brake, whatever you do, do not use steel in your fins.....
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
I think they do this on furius baco - it certainly feels like you're being dragged behind a pack of wild horses!