[nitpick]Ok, this is making me sick. We can put men on the moon but we can't put a loop on vertical track? Pleeeease![/nitpick]
Now for my solution. I know it's hard to visualize, but try your hardest. In order to get the train up and down through a loop safely, have a somewhat deformed loop. Make a wider turning radius at the top of the loop, and a smaller radius for the bottom part. Just imagine a "Large Half Loop" in RCT then a regular "Half Loop" followed by another slope up to vertical. Since you would have greater speed coming from the launch, there is a larger radius at the top. That should slow you down enough to bear the smaller radius at the bottom of the loop. Once you are thru the loop and into the vertical spike, you lose speed, drop, and only gain a little bit of momentum before entering the bottom, smaller radius portion of the loop. With your decreased speed, it would take less energy to get thru the small loop half than the larger part. Give me about 5 minutes and I'll upload a drawing...
-------------
Six Flags America? No, no! My name means "Sarcasm-For-All"
Got the image...
http://www.rpoint.f2s.com/vertloop.gif ... tell me what you think!
-------------
Six Flags America? No, no! My name means "Sarcasm-For-All"
Actually SFA, I was thinking just the opposite. I would have the small radius first, at the top of the loop and the larger radius at the bottom. You lose more momentum by gaining potential energy (i.e. being higher off the ground) than you lose due to friction.
lata,
J No
-------------
DJ play my mutha(bleepin) song!
2Hostyl, if you put the large radius at the bottom, the train will probably valley during the return route. That can be overcome with boosters and such, but from a purely conventional point of view, I don't think that would work. A lot of the physics will depend on how high the loop is in relation to the vertical tower.
-------------
Six Flags America? No, no! My name means "Sarcasm-For-All"
SFA: The tight radius goes at the top where velocities are the lowest. The larger radius goes at the bottom where velocities are higher. Otherwise, you get too many G's at the bottom. That's the whole idea of the clothoid loop; it's tight at the top and has a larger radius at the bottom.
The ideal shape for the element that we are talking about would be a chopped up clothoid. You would start at the point where the train would be traveling vertically upward in a normal clothoid and then continue through the clothoid shape over the top and around to the horizontal at the bottom. Once you are horizontal you would then add on the first quarter of the clothoid that you left out in order to get you back to vertical.
Jim, that's usually true. However in this case, we're talking about a launch. The most speed will be on the first half of the loop. You just couldn't go into a tight top of a loop at launched speeds. I mean, you are going 100mph on S:TE. You couldn't do a tight loop anywhere near those speeds. By having a large radius first, you bleed away most of the speed, allowing a tight turn at the bottom of the loop and a quick transition back into the vertical.
-------------
Six Flags America? No, no! My name means "Sarcasm-For-All"
You know it most likely could be done. But I think there are much better new ways to build coasters that designers will think of rather than this. I don't see any company trying something this odd and difficult.
-------------
...A natural force simply known as, Millennium Force...
