Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in
  • Congratulations waross on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Fury 325 Rollercoaster cracking 15

Status
Not open for further replies.
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
I doubt they will remove any of the track, most likely just support it or let it support itself while they replace the column.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Local media is reporting that the failed column was removed on Wednesday, July 12 and that the new column is to arrive on Thursday, July 13.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Since they are apparently not removing the section of track at the column, I now believe that they replaced all of the bolts at both ends of that section. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the work that they did at both joints.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Taking the bolts loose on the track likely helps when trying to align the bolt holes on the replacement column.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Allowing that would misalign the track. More likely to inspect for cracks at the bolts that would be difficult to see with the bolts in place. Probably did it one bolt at a time to avoid any shift of the track.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I just watched this video which reports the cracked support had been welded several weeks before the viral video was made. shortly after 1:45 in

Elsewhere in the video a company official says the crack could be the result of steel weakening over time. He might be on to something...
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
That's the first I've heard that they were 'working' on this area weeks ago.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
That photo with shrink wrap, LOL.
Next we will see it wrapped with duct tape, and running.
Click to expand...
Duct tape was the first plan but the local hardware store was out of stock.

--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I wonder if the designer assumed that the track was rigid between supports and did not allow for lateral deflection of the adjacent supports.
when the cars passed and the crack opened up, the adjacent supports would be moving laterally.

--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Fortunately there was enough redundancy in this spot to prevent a collapse but what about other track locations that don't have such a luxury? I am really concerned that their inspections are lackluster at best and now that this ride has seen a significant amount of fatigue cycles that this is going to occur more often - and with potentially catastrophic consequences.
They are probably doing the same math Ford did with the Pinto in the 70's.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
XR250 said:
They are probably doing the same math Ford did with the Pinto in the 70's.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure they'd be at the point of "let them die" quite yet. But they'd certainly be working furiously trying to figure out just how many columns need replacing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
What about fatigue on the track sections? If one of those fails, it won't be pretty.
That is the Pinto math I was referring to.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
"Pinto math" was based on a detailed accounting of the probability and statistics. Not doing sufficient regular inspections and - more g'damn important - not having every staff member given an emergency number to call when something is coming apart - that's gross mismanagement. No one was thinking how much they would save by not having that number printed on every employee facing surface. The management wasn't thinking about failure at all.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
OK.
There has to be math in there for the cost of the frequency and depth of maintenance and inspections versus the probability of failure and the cost of that failure -either the hard costs or insurance/life cost.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
There has to be math in there for the cost of the frequency and depth of maintenance and inspections versus the probability of failure and the cost of that failure -either the hard costs or insurance/life cost.
Click to expand...

I've worked at a bunch of engineering companies and none of them had historical data of engineering scope vs. cost for proposal estimation, even though that would seem to be something someone should have to accurate estimate the cost of a program. I've HEARD of one company that did that, but every other company pretty much flies by the seat of their pants. Of course, even when one comes up with realistic costs, there's invariably a management edict to cut the proposal estimates, which eventually leads to overruns or not doing the work needed.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
This is a Theme Park Company - not and Engineering Company but I hear you.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It used to be better. The Internet has taken a few fundamental changes since it's inception. I remember in the mid to late 1990's when public universities were excited to share their entire digitized collection of out of print books for FREE to ANYONE. I believe UC Berkeley embraced this first. Boy how things have changed. Now it's difficult to find anything pre-2010 on the Internet and harder if it's a controversial subject.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

SteynvW
  • Locked
  • Question
Sydney Apartments Cracking
Replies
8
Views
33
FacEngrPE
FacEngrPE
Tomfh
  • Locked
  • Question
Mascot Towers - transfer beam cracking 8
2
Replies
29
Views
94
georgeverghese
georgeverghese

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top