this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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I think it’s more to due to the radius.
It’s hard to tell the exact size from the picture, but the diameter of that loop seems to be at least several meters.
The one at action park was like 2 wide.
A bigger circle means less G forces while going around the loop, and less injuries. But action park rides were designed and built by the owner, who was not an engineer and apparently did not know any engineers. I’m pretty sure if you mentioned angular velocity to him, he’d just say that’s a sick name for a ride and then run away to get to a hardware store as fast as possible.
Makes sense, it's more of a bobsled feeling than a loop feeling.
The loop is also a circle, rather than the inverted teardrop shape (clothoid) it should have to spread those g-forces more evenly through the turn.
This, but also, for the loop to work they have to be accelerating VERY fast into it. Look how steep the drop into is, compared to the angle of any of the slides in this photo. (Well, maybe not that green one back-right. That looks like one of those things where you slide down on your back on a hard sled and get a hundred feet of runway at the end.)