2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

THE PHYSICS OF THE ROLLER COASTER

the highest speed at 33.5m/s as well as the ride length at 1270 m. This indicates that the

higher height release supplies the roller coaster sufficient potential energy to travel at higher

speed and longer distance. Other roller coasters have similar heights of release and ride

lengths such as the Crazy Coaster in China and Altair in Italy (33 m release, 875 m long and

23.6m/s fast). However, there is an anomaly with the Smiler in UK. Its height of release is 30m

with 14 inversions(loops, cyclone,…) and similar speed with others but its ride length is

completely larger than others 1170m >875m. This is why the secondary data I extracted is not

too relevant as different roller coaster designs allows the different roller coasters to gain or

preserve energy.

7. Conclusion The data from the experiment provided relevant and satisfying trend which also supports my

hypothesis: the higher height of release allows the object to gain more potential energy hence

it travels faster and is able to complete larger loops. This essay also helped me to explore the

concept of potential energy in roller coasters allows the coaster cars to travel at a high velocity

without any engines. However, there are some key weaknesses to the experiment which

could have been improved.

7.1 Evaluation

- The loops were not exactly circular as the bottom and top support were very difficult to

move. This also caused few errors in measuring the radius of the loops. As you can see in

table 1.2, there is anomaly at height 60cm and 70cm that could have been caused by the

systematic errors. To improve this, I would recommend using both track holders on both

vertical and horizontal sides of the loop to shape the loop more correctly.

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IB Diploma