Hershey Park Research Paper

Hersheypark was an enjoyable experience. Since youth I have been in the Hershey area many times, playing in the Ice Rinks around the immediate vicinity of the park, yet actually going to the park as alluded me. The first ride was Skyrush. Traveling at speed of around 70 miles an hour it is an exhilarating ride. First, using power from electricity, gears and pulleys do work to move the full mass of the cars, in which the whole train has a mass of 13 tons, up a steep incline to increase the gravitational potential energy of the cars. When the cars get to the top of the first hill the gravitational potential energy is at it’s highest. When released at the top of the first hill, gravitational potential energy is then transformed into kinetic energy. …show more content…
For the duration of a roller coaster ride, there is no displacement, though there is distance. This is because roller coasters start and end at the same point, therefore there is no displacement, even though the length of skyrush is 1,130 meters long. From data on the hersheypark webpage, the maximum amount of positive g’s, which is the acceleration that one feels is about 5g’s, while the maximum negative g-force is -2g’s. At the end of the track there brakes the momentum of the cars is large do to the velocity in which the cars are coming in and their mass, therefore, a very large frictional force is used to brake the cars so that they are back at the start. During our experience the rails were wet causing the coefficient of friction to be decreased, thus causing our train to slightly overshoot the stopping