This presentation will describe some of the practical challenges involved in the analysis,design, fabrication and installation of an amusement ride structure. The ride structure replaces an existingroller coaster track that has been operating for almost thirty years. Performance data from the existingtrack and vehicles were utilized in the design and analysis of the new track. The presentation describessome of the techniques used to model the geometry and loading of the new ride track, and covers fatiguedetail design considerations for such demanding cyclic loading applications. An overview of the fabricationand installation work is given, with particular emphasis on the techniques used to maintain stringentgeometric tolerances to achieve the targeted ride quality. Finally, a description is given of the approach tointegrated structural analysis and 3D geometric modeling and interference checking. The 3D modelingtechniques developed for this job were essential in meeting the tight production schedule and avoidingpotential interference problems in installing the new track structure inside an existing building.The new roller coaster track was designed to fatigue design standards which are significantly morestringent than the standards used for the existing track. Furthermore, current amusement ride standardsrequire impact load factors assumed in the design to be validated by recording actual data from thefinished ride. Speed and accelerometer data from the existing ride were utilized to develop loading profilesfor the new track. The more stringent fatigue design criteria coupled with the actual load data tended todrive towards a larger ride track cross-section. For several reasons, the space available for a larger crosssectionwas severely limited. The customer required that the track centreline geometry remain unchanged.This requirement stemmed from the desire to retain the existing ride vehicles, which were gravity drivenand thus very sensitive to changes in track geometry. A unique roller coaster track section was developedfor this job, satisfying all fatigue requirements while minimizing the probability of spatial interferences withpassenger reach envelopes, track support structure, and existing facility components.The new ride track design consists of a welded steel box girder backbone coupled with two vehicleguiderail pipes. Fatigue requirements dictated a relatively close spacing of guiderail supports. In order tominimize fabrication costs, an innovative system of standardized rail to box girder connection componentswas designed. The load transfer mechanism between the guiderails and box is relatively complicated,relying on significant out-of-plane bending of various components. Several different finite elementmodeling strategies at varying levels of resolution were required. The presentation covers in detail thefinite element modeling techniques, the postprocessing procedures, and the results interpretation methodsemployed in the analysis and design of this specialized structure.
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