Arrow and Vekoma rough, but Morgan smooth

Age of wheels and maintenance does play a part. Lets be honest, if you owned a park with an Arrow Corkscrew and a B&M Invert, and both were getting rougher, which one would you work at maintaining first?

The example of Flashback being rough is good for explaining this. Flashback I'm sure could be made smoother if firstly it had its wheels replaced, and work done on the trains, and then OTSR removed.

With the OTSR causing roughness, think of it like this, if the upper part of your body is tied down, with OTSR, then all of the roughness caused by the coaster is exerted into your body. I mean, when you are mowing the lawn, and the lawnmowers handle is shaking, it will make your arms shake too. So in this case, your torso, neck and head are pinned down and make the same movements as the restraint which is holding you down. Hence, causing headbanging.

However, with lapbars, your upper body is free, and your hips, the only part of your body pinned down is your hips, and the amount of movement is less, because it's closer to the track and so the radius of the vibrations is shorter, resulting in less shaking. Also, your hips and spine and body fat absorb much of this shaking, making your neck and head move very little.

To give an example. Schwarzkopf, maker of many looping coasters, made the coaster Revolution at SFMM. This coaster is known to be rather rough, and also, has OTSR. Many Schwarzkopf coasters only have lapbars, and most of these are very smooth. Also, many of these are travelling coasters, which are physically weaker stuctures than permanent coasters. So in this example, the roughness is caused by a combination of undermaintenance and the OSTR being present on a coaster (which wasn't designed to have them either).

Also, many people knows that rides like Arrow's Shockwave or GASM, will run a smooth season if the wheels are replaced or worked on.

In 95% of all rough steel coasters would be loopers, and most of these would be Arrow, Vekoma, or lesser known companies. Most of these coasters would be inverting coasters with OTSR.

Roughness is rarely caused by the stucture. Many people think that a coasters track wobbling as the train goes over the section is much of the cause of roughness. This however isn't the case. The strucure is moving because of the forces the train puts on the track, which is why a turn will wobble more than a bunny hop. As well as this, the wobbling is caused by roughness. It is in this case caused by the train wobbling the track rather than the train wobbling it self. The wobbles have found the weakest part of the system and hence exert the forces caused by the wobbling into the track and it's supports.

Richard

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Greatest movie in the history of mankind -- ~Young Einstein~

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Comatose said:
Inversions.
Does anyone complain about Magnum being rough and headbangy?

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Yes...
Well, not headbangy, but Backbreaker. :)
Even Morgan's hypers are much smoother than Arrow's. At least Arrow's have forces ;)
 
-Josh

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