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Roller coaster

I read about head also, considering it's a fixed location ride, not a traveling one it seems like the engineering failed somewhere along the line. The forces for the ride which tops out at 325 feet have to be phenomenal.
 
I saw a video of the ride and that crack and the track moving separately from the column. Seems some part of the engineering didn't fail considering such a major "crack" didn't fail catastrophically. Luckily not a RUD (rapid unplanned disassembly).
 
The evening news has a video of the crack opening up as a a car loaded with people crosses. It is a complete separation… you could toss a cat through the gap.

The culprit will turn out to be value engineering. The structure will be torn down.
 
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bill1952 said:
No injuries. System worked.
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I fail to see how the system worked when it was a customer that pointed out the separation. There is a picture, that I can't find-- but have seen, of a crack taken some days prior to the failure. That crack was visible on the left side and the picture was taken from a distance.

Reports stated that it took an hour to shut down the ride after the customer reported the problem to a security guard.

Either there was a defect in the steel or there was a defect in the design.


Screen Shot 2023-07-04 at 8.01.08 AM.jpeg
 
bill1952 said:
The system worked because a significant failure did not result in injuries or fatalities.
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I agree with your statement. However, it would be just a matter of time before there would be a catastrophic failure if this had not been reported.
The picture below is from a week earlier when it was just a crack.

"The park says it inspects its rides every day" 7 days of daily inspections and it was not noticed? Somebody wasn't doing their job properly.

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ICE said:
I fail to see how the system worked when it was a customer that pointed out the separation.
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I think we are talking apples and oranges. The system as designed worked because there was no catastrophic failure or RUD. The maintenance system failed to find this issue. The design compensated for the lack of adequate maintenance and inspection. This is a people problem. With that being said, knowing this fails over time should result in a redesign.
 
jar546 said:
. The system as designed worked because there was no catastrophic failure or RUD. The design compensated for the lack of adequate maintenance and inspection.
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Thats a great point. Too many items have failed due to a lack of redundancy and designing everything to maximum load.
 
I've designed a lot of stage rigging systems, which totally go against many usual warnings because they are moving loads overheads. (Look at manufacturer data and see how most rigging and hoisting products state clearly "not for lifting overheads".) Consequently, a lot of redundancy and a whole lot of attention to where a single point failure would be catastrophic. Outsiders often say over design but where a wire rope failure could drop a ton or two on a high school chorus, only prudent to over design a lot, especially if you can't single point failure proof the work.
 
mtlogcabin said:
I agree with your statement. However, it would be just a matter of time before there would be a catastrophic failure if this had not been reported.
The picture below is from a week earlier when it was just a crack.

"The park says it inspects its rides every day" 7 days of daily inspections and it was not noticed? Somebody wasn't doing their job properly.

View attachment 10934
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The missed opportunity to catch the failure is an indictment of their lax attention to safety. The operators of the theme park should have their feet held to the fire.... Every mechanical ride should be certified by, not one but, three structural engineers ...monthly. The nondestructive testing required of every possible failure point should come close to bankrupting them.
And all of that is just for starters. Their insurance carrier will probably cancel them.
 
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steveray said:
"The park says it inspects its rides every day"

Inspected by people making minimum wage and earning every penny of it.....
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I read that and wondered what the certification requirements or training regiment was. I assumed the same as you.
 
tmurray said:
I read that and wondered what the certification requirements or training regiment was.
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LA County sends inspectors to inspect amusement rides at traveling carnivals. There was no instruction or any sort of training. I was told to look them over and that I could make them fix anything I didn't like. I was also told that I could do nothing and rely on the State inspection sticker as proof that the ride was safe. I got to know the State inspector. He left the position under dubious circumstances.

I took it to next level inspection.
 
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At this point we are all just speculating on what could be the issue.

It could be as simple as the foundation not being 100% stable and settled a little producing forces in another direction not accounted for nor planned for, nor seen.

As to the inspection process, that needs to be looked at and the park needs to explain how this was missed as a crack, not to mention total separation.

I would be interested to know if they did a full 3d scan of the ride when it was installed and then again now and see if anything moved from the original placement.

Pretty sure who ever built this and installed it, is looking hard at any other rides they completed since this one was installed and their insurance carrier is the one taking a good look, the park is far less concerned than the designer and the manufacture is right now.
 
Msradell said:
I read about head also, considering it's a fixed location ride, not a traveling one it seems like the engineering failed somewhere along the line. The forces for the ride which tops out at 325 feet have to be phenomenal.
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The design of roller coasters is mostly driven by fatigue issues. When dealing with fatigue issues if you have enough repetition of the load the magnitude of the load does not need to be very high to cause cracks to grow. Often what is more important is the details and fabrication of the members. The building code was not developed to deal with fatigue issues.

To automatically blame the failure on the engineer reflects a lack of appreciation of the issues involved.

My understanding is that roller coasters are not regulated by building departments but rather by other entities. My understanding is that in California the Department of Industrial Relations has jurisdiction
 
Up here in BC we have a provincial authority called Technical Safety BC that regulates technologies such as electrical, gas, elevating devices, boilers and pressure vessels, amusement rides, etc.

I cannot imagine being asked to review an amusement ride without some basis of training.
 
Mark K said:
The design of roller coasters is mostly driven by fatigue issues. When dealing with fatigue issues if you have enough repetition of the load the magnitude of the load does not need to be very high to cause cracks to grow. Often what is more important is the details and fabrication of the members. The building code was not developed to deal with fatigue issues.
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Sounds just like the submarine that imploded at the Titanic.
 
The ASTM F24 committee has a number of standards covering amusement rides. Process similar to most codes and standards.
 
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