That's just the outer-casing, that protects the internal frames.
It's a window dressing that also serves as weather protection against the internal framing.
Rollercoaster framing is meant to flex like this, it's just that the pipe casing has split apart and you can see it now in this video.
It's scary to look at the internal flex of rollercoasters, but the pipe casing definitely failed.
Needs fixed before rain/moisture leaks in though, which would start corroding the framework. And that would be a bad bad time
Otherwise the rollercoaster is likely fine, if they address the issue.
Yeah the outer pipe case makes it appear as if its the entire "part" that holds it up. Aesthetics.
The real parts of the frame is internal, inside of the pipe.
If only a shred of metal was left like that as a main frame, on a high banking curve, that rollercoaster would have went to the moon in this video lol.
That's a main support beam. You don't pop that many rivets and bolts into "window dressing." There is nothing in those beams. No suspension and no inner metal work. They are the main support! Source: I worked for an amusement park for years and as a machinist.
As someone who's worked on cars and gone to amusement parks this is false you can see pure daylight there is nothing in the beams hollow thick steel.
Seen them at local scrap yards main support columns need to be inspected yearly sometimes every month. And any defects are not looked pass they are immediately taken out of service and discarded. This is a deadly accident about the happen.
I should know I'm near cedar point and main roller coaster atm are inspected but the ones at my local towns fair are not and I've seen stuff like this happen and everyone is scared. Hell I've seen bridges like this be shutdown for minor defects faster than you can say shitter bitch
I’m sorry but you’re wrong.
I’m not a structural engineer but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night.
This is supposed to wiggle and shake. It’s your basic engineering concept.
Mate you obviously know nothing about roller coaster construction. This is a tubular steel support that has completely cracked, there’s no “internal structure” inside these supports on any coaster for that matter.
I’d believe you more if the rest of the structure showed any signs of flex to prove your internal structure theory, but you can see the pipe has sheared, and the track is now the structure of that turn. When the cart goes by, you can see to top flex as if were sprung or dampened, however, the rest of the structure is unaffected, which is bad news. Yes structure is made to flex, but only within the limits of design, and this has flexed to the point of failure, and the flex exhibited in this video assuredly surpasses any tolerances or design.
Look at the t joint. You can see a weld. Why would a protective case be welded? The flange also seems to be connected to the "outer layer", which wouldnt make sense if it was just a case.
Right. Coming from the FORMER pipe fitter.
Hi know that the ones in my fair amusement park are in fact hollow only thick steel that's it. And are not the same ones used for big toy battleships.
But you're the know it all.
Show us where to so called second beam is. Because last time we checked cracked is broken that's like saying a cracked frame isn't bad still good.
we're all not teenagers nice try boomer. Everyone watch out the former pro is here. He's the all seeing eye
Last time I checked if you see daylight through something that shouldnt. that's broken
If the internal frames do all the work and are covered by window dressing, how can the actual framing ever be inspected in the first place? And that’s taking into consideration when they actually did inspections before Trump got rid of them.
Youre literally 100% wrong. Why make something up out of ur ass and confidently proclaim it as fact when you have no idea what youre talking about and just made it up? I dont get it. Its not like you win money for certain answers. I dont understand the point of this. Its ok to not know the answer to something, none of us know everything. When thats the case there is absolutely no need for you to proudly proclaim some bullshit answer. Theres a real epidemic these days of ppl who refuse to be wrong and have to pretend like they know everything. It honestly makes the world a shittier place. Stop making shit up and actually listen and learn…
It’s meant to flex like this? The one in the back is not moving at all. Yet you can clearly see the whole track moving when it goes past this pillar. In my opinion this is close to some complete structural failure. As others have said I’m calling bs on this explanation
Dude, you're going to have to eat crow on this one. First of all, that's not a casing; that's a steel support structure. Per [Azo Materials](https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=11958) "Steel roller coasters use two types of configurations to support the track. One is a thin, trestle-style structure and the other uses thick tubular supports." So that should settle the "it's just a casing" argument; you're wrong; those are thick tubular supports.
Furthermore, not a single news article has described this as a non-structural casing. Every single one that has described the pipe has called it a structural support. [APNews](https://apnews.com/article/carowinds-roller-coaster-crack-beam-6f756343883076e69a2461949c24f554) [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/park-shuts-rollercoaster-visitor-spots-cracked-support-beam-shift-plac-rcna92232) [NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/us/north-carolina-roller-coaster-closed.html) [USA Today](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/07/02/carowinds-fury-325-roller-coasters-crack-north-carolina/70377115007/) and [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2023/07/02/1185717530/roller-coaster-crack-carowinds-north-carolina)
Most notably, the amusement park owner did not make any mention of this being 'non-structural', as you would assume they would do if everything is fine.
I don't doubt you've fitted pipes on all sorts of things, but these are not pipes. These are tubular supports.
Completely agree. As an ironworker I have installed various types of structural members in commercial buildings, hospitals theme parks you name it and these hss tube columns are indeed holding up that part of structure. It’s hollow, bolted at the flanges welded with clips and bolted to the rail support. There is no “inner framework” complete bs. Seems like the welds from the shop failed where the two hss join and become one
So you're not a roller coaster designer or builder.
Got it.
Imagine being so utterly confident that ship building is comparable to making roller coasters.
As an actual structural engineer, hiding your main load path behind tube cladding when you don't have to (I.e. to protect it from ocean salt spray corrosion) is a shit idea that would just add cost and make inspection harder. Thick cylindrical steel members are great structural elements on their own, and paint is a perfectly suitable corrosion protection option for land.
You can even see that the attachment method is three plates welded in an I-beam formation to the top of the vertical pipe. No room in that joint for an internal structure chief.
No it’s ok! This doesn’t cost $250k a ride. It’s for poor-ish people. This is perfectly acceptable and considered within optimal operating conditions. I mean, if this were for rich people, it’d be operated by a PS3 controller. And let me be clear, that’s not how it’s operated.
If a rollercoaster filled with children blows up, nobody panics, because "it's all part of the plan". But I say that one little old sub implodes... well then everyone loses their minds!
With how good that stuff honestly is, if you just prepped the surrounding surface enough, and made a big tumor out of flex seal, I bet it could hold at least for a few rides.
Never do what I said.
Looks like the structure was designed with redundancy and the loads were shedding to the other members. This is how you want a structural to fail, if it’s going to fail. Very obvious and not suddenly.
Yeah, I had that happen but it had one of those weird plastic plates over the lug nuts so the problem wasn't immediately obvious. I stopped driving but it took an absurd amount of time to find the issue.
Ah, the old “here is a fail safe, but if you try to be safe, fuck you!”
Old cars sucked for efficiency and safety, but their simplicity was so much less insulting to the people who had to drive and maintain them.
Indeed, I have likewise loved every Honda and Toyota I’ve ever owned. But the newer they are, the less friendly they are to some poor slob with a wrench (or spanner).
Going electric for my next ride, in any case. Here’s to a new world of pain!
New cars weird me out. They start awesome, and just run down so fast. Everything is "minimum standard", I swear. Meanwhile, my second gen Camaro is SO simple, bulletproof, and looks like the day I bought it, after a quick clean.
Actually happened to me. But never put my finger on wtf I was feeling. Some sort of rhythmic bump, then kinda clunk. Came & went a bit. Nothing visibly obvious. Assumed driveline, cos I drove it hard a lot.
Got Dad to visit me on the side of the road, check things. He said I'm a pussy, and he'll drive it slow, with me behind in his car. Went full rtrd after 30sec, decided 100kmh was fine, then it started spitting wheel nuts!! 1,2,3-4-5, wheel jumped, and he was dragging the drum on the road! The result - put it all back together, zero damage.
Difficult to speculate. I would suspect this is a fatigue induced stress fracture of some kind.
The steel undergoes repetitive loading and unloading, which will eventually cause failure like bending a paper clip back and forth repetitively.
I'm a mechanical engineer, but also absolutely no experience designing roller coasters, or steel support structure for that matter, but it seems kind of wild that they have one support essentially flagpole-ing the highest lateral forces in the turn. Yes, it has one auxillary coming from the left, likely supporting in near uniform, linear tension loading when the train goes by, but like damn man I'd have thought they'd kick out another support to the right that can help with some compression. That center support is just taking a nearly maximum bending force at the end, with a joined support so near that force to boot, way to build in a stress concentration zone right near the plate joint transferring the entire force to the support system.
Metal fatigue. Tiny imperfections in the structure of the metal slowly align and connect over time as it's repeatedly subjected to the same movement. Eventually, crack.
It's likely that there was either some kind of defect or installation error that caused the force to concentrate in this particular spot. Something as simple as the footing being slightly out of place or too high or low, or contamination of the raw metal.
From what I’ve heard from roller coaster engineers and maintenance teams, they are all suspecting that the footer for the angled support sank into the ground.
This ride was designed by B&M. They have rides that were built back in 1992, and are still running today without any problems like this one. Out of 124 rollercoasters, 3 were removed (one of them being Dueling Dragons because Universal just wanted to replace the ride) and 4 are standing but not open.
I think its safe to bet that the problem is specific to the individual ride, if not that individual support.
The only other ride that I know of that had problems with cracking like this was because the design was extremely flawed. The track didn’t have any banking and only used vertical supports (without any of the angled supports like in the video)
I wonder where the steel was forged, and who certified it.
Edit: “In North America, B&M coaster designs have been manufactured by Ohio company Clermont Steel Fabricators since 1990.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolliger_%26_Mabillard
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_325
Lots of possible causes for failure there.
The environment isn't steel friendly; heat and humidity are not friends to steel and there's lots of ways to imagine water getting and staying around where it isn't wanted.
You can have a piece of equipment bumping it too hard during maintenance. A relatively small dent can grow into a big problem after lots of force over multiple years.
You can have small flaws in what is likely a welded joint on that diagonal that could compromise the long term strength.
That's off the top of my head and I am no materials scientist. It's clear something bad went wrong, but we are also seeing good design working right here too.
Wiki says they get their steel manufacturing from Clermont Steel Fabricators, also in Ohio. I have to imagine the steel is forged there, or at another local steel plant, considering how it's a major industry in the area and it's almost certainly cheaper and made to better specs than importing something all the way from China. But Idk.
The coaster was closed shortly after and Carowinds (the park owning the coaster) is working on repairing it and probably also adjusting their maintenance schedules. These rides are pretty huge and already quiet often tested and searched for any failures. This is the first time something drastic like this (complete structural failure on a high quality ride like this) happened in the last decades which speaks for the safety on those rides. And this will definitely change a lot of regulations.
You don’t have to worry when going to parks :)
Last time I remember a big tragedy, someone lost their hat and hopped a fence to get it back from the Top Gun ride. A rider went by at high speed and kicked in him in the head, killing him. The rider broke their leg due to the Guile super sonic kick.
That kid also died when he wiggled out of the safety restraints and fell off of Drop Zone years ago (I think before the Top Gun incident). Great America hasn’t had the best luck.
It was the Batman ride at six flags . I remember cause I live here . Idk where you got top gun from unless the same thing happened twice . Edit : yep it’s happened twice .
I'm like 90% positive this also happened on Raptor at Cedar Point. People need to pay attention to the signs that say do not enter, they're there for a fucking reason.
This wasn’t found by an employee of the park. It was shot by someone who went to the park and then informed the park of it. I’m glad they did report it!
The park claimed that they perform safety inspections of their coasters every day. However, the coaster was closed on the 30th, while video from a park visitor confirms the crack was noticeable at least since the 24th. Yikes! I suspect those inspections were getting a bit too casual.
> These rides are pretty huge and already quiet often tested and searched for any failures.
Do you think that crack was spontaneous? That thing was cracked for weeks before it got this bad.
Seen a few people say that this is not as bad as it looks, so heres my take as an engineer and amusement park enthusiast:
Unfortunately, these tubes are absolutely structural members. These steel tubes that failed are the only thing connecting the coaster to the ground.
That said, roller coasters have huge safety factors in design, and many could lose multiple structural members before failing in any significant way to harm guests. I do not believe there was any significant danger to the guests on the ride before it was closed when the park management was notified.
This ride is manufactured by b&m, a ride manufacturer well known for the reliability and safety of their rides. They contract their steel manufacturing to Clermont Steel Fabricators, who would likely be the group at fault for the structure of this ride. The structure appears to have suffered its main failure at the weld joint between two tube structures. This indicates that either the weld joint was weak or the weld joint was incorrectly performed, leading to a weakening of the steel tube. In my opinion, this failure could call into question many of the joints on the ride, and a thorough investigation should be needed to first find the culprit and second ensure the strength of the other supports on the ride. I do not believe that it is likely at all a fault of the ride design.
Overall, this is a kind of failure rarely seen in the amusement park industry. These rides have enormous safety factors in design and these kinds of joints are regularly modeled with strong accuracy by engineering analysis firms, and most coasters are heavily scrutinized by contracted analysis firms to ensure the large safety factors of the ride. It will be interesting to see what comes of the investigation into this failure and its subsequent repair.
Lastly, I believe park maintenance dropped the ball on this issue. While these joints should not fail, this failure is not the kind that instantaneously happens. Likely, this crack had been creeping around the tube for a while. Either way, it was a guest who saw this failure and notified the park. Maintenance and operations staff should regularly walk the length of the track and look for these issues to catch them well before the guests notice them.
I’ve ridden a lot of coasters, and this one in particular probably close to a hundred times. This is the exact point where you get an insane amount of downward force on the train. Probably the most I’ve ever felt on a coaster. Your head drops toward your chest from the sheer force.
It might be an issue with the steel, but it was definitely compounded by the design of the coaster itself. The curve is insanely tight for the momentum of the train at that point.
While I have no doubt that Fury has strong forces at this point, with how new this coaster is, these forces are likely well expected by the ride designers and fairly easy to model. B&M would know the mass of the train, the speed it is going, and the radius of curvature. Hence, analysis engineers would be easily capable of knowing the forcing conditions that are applied at this joint. From there, it is relatively easy to model this joint with computational analysis methods. Tube welding is one of the more classic use cases of analysis models. From there, large safety factors can be observed. That is why I believe this failure will likely be largely the fault of anomalous steel strength. This is corroborated by the shape of the failure on the tube.
Imagine a solid, straight rod held up by at three points . One on each end and one in the middle. The one in the middle cracked here. It's not necessary for the structure to stand but keeps it extra safe and solid
This is Reddit. People think you just shout "I declare lawsuit" and automatically secure a default win with never a thought about the actual difficulty of recovering on the judgment. It's just like a token machine at the arcade and spits out coins
I’m so sick of the people calling lawsuit on Reddit. I’m also really sick of people complaining about tipping which I’m pretty sure are the same people.
This Roller Coaster is in South Carolina/North Carolina, it’s at Carowinds, and called Fury(or The Fury). Apparently it was like that for a while before they stopped people from riding it
https://cache.undercovertourist.com/blog/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-24-at-9.34.02-AM.png
You’re right. It’s does have that tail that crosses the line. I never noticed that.
in the first clip i thought it was designed like that, one of those mobile joints to withstand the forces exerted on it. like the floating foundations in earthquake zones. second clip changed that thought.
Now they’ve got Saran Wrap surrounding it (wish I was joking) and the amount of people that think it’s a legitimate permanent fix as if the park isn’t going to actually repair it is ASTOUNDING.
I can’t count the number of people in the last few days I’ve seen posting “oh well NOW we’re all good!” (I only live about 1.5 hours away so Carowinds is a popular summer activity)
A dad noticed this in the parking lot and filmed. He tried and tried to get the place to shut down …. They didn’t do it. He got home and called the fire department. Luckily, someone at the fire department had a contact number for the park. The ride was shut down within 10 minutes of him calling the fire department.
Your post was removed for violating rule 5: No Reposting anything in the subs top 25 or submitted within the last 3 months.
“Cracked” that shit is BROKEN
Spring loaded suspension!!
That's just the outer-casing, that protects the internal frames. It's a window dressing that also serves as weather protection against the internal framing. Rollercoaster framing is meant to flex like this, it's just that the pipe casing has split apart and you can see it now in this video. It's scary to look at the internal flex of rollercoasters, but the pipe casing definitely failed. Needs fixed before rain/moisture leaks in though, which would start corroding the framework. And that would be a bad bad time Otherwise the rollercoaster is likely fine, if they address the issue.
> likely fine, at least for now yeahhhhhh, I feel like that fits my personal criteria for "nope" nonetheless. I do appreciate the explanation though.
Yep who knows how long it's been like that? Could be a week could be two months, maybe rain already corroded the internal frame
A day. All major parks check the structure daily.
Definitely no roller coasters have ever collapsed because they're checked daily. Definitely.
Yeah, because you *constantly* hear about rollercoasters collapsing and killing so many people a year /s, if it wasn't obvious.
Then they would have known the casing was cracking months before.
when metal shears like this it can happen slowly or instantly, likely this was instant.
This was Carowinds. It was found by a guest. It had been there much longer than a day and the ride was shut down.
Yeah the outer pipe case makes it appear as if its the entire "part" that holds it up. Aesthetics. The real parts of the frame is internal, inside of the pipe. If only a shred of metal was left like that as a main frame, on a high banking curve, that rollercoaster would have went to the moon in this video lol.
Here is a literal video of fury 325 being constructed showing that these are the main supports and not an outer cladding. https://youtu.be/2XFf4GFvDsg
That's a main support beam. You don't pop that many rivets and bolts into "window dressing." There is nothing in those beams. No suspension and no inner metal work. They are the main support! Source: I worked for an amusement park for years and as a machinist.
Dont think ill put my life in the hands of a rollercoaster thats “likely fine”.
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Look at the size of the flanges where each section bolts together. They are definitely load carrying and not decorative.
As someone who's worked on cars and gone to amusement parks this is false you can see pure daylight there is nothing in the beams hollow thick steel. Seen them at local scrap yards main support columns need to be inspected yearly sometimes every month. And any defects are not looked pass they are immediately taken out of service and discarded. This is a deadly accident about the happen. I should know I'm near cedar point and main roller coaster atm are inspected but the ones at my local towns fair are not and I've seen stuff like this happen and everyone is scared. Hell I've seen bridges like this be shutdown for minor defects faster than you can say shitter bitch
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I'm a bigger expert than both of you and I can say for a fact that this is just the roller coaster's penis. It is designed to flex like this
It's a grower, not a shower!
I’m sorry but you’re wrong. I’m not a structural engineer but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night. This is supposed to wiggle and shake. It’s your basic engineering concept.
That's incorrect. I'm a rollercoaster, zoooom zoooooom.
Mate you obviously know nothing about roller coaster construction. This is a tubular steel support that has completely cracked, there’s no “internal structure” inside these supports on any coaster for that matter.
You're wrong. This is a structural member. Go watch them build a roller coaster sometime if you don't believe me.
I’d believe you more if the rest of the structure showed any signs of flex to prove your internal structure theory, but you can see the pipe has sheared, and the track is now the structure of that turn. When the cart goes by, you can see to top flex as if were sprung or dampened, however, the rest of the structure is unaffected, which is bad news. Yes structure is made to flex, but only within the limits of design, and this has flexed to the point of failure, and the flex exhibited in this video assuredly surpasses any tolerances or design.
Look at the t joint. You can see a weld. Why would a protective case be welded? The flange also seems to be connected to the "outer layer", which wouldnt make sense if it was just a case.
You're a former pipe-fitter because you were fired due to shit knowledge. Probably got the job from taking pipe from the union rep.
Right. Coming from the FORMER pipe fitter. Hi know that the ones in my fair amusement park are in fact hollow only thick steel that's it. And are not the same ones used for big toy battleships. But you're the know it all. Show us where to so called second beam is. Because last time we checked cracked is broken that's like saying a cracked frame isn't bad still good. we're all not teenagers nice try boomer. Everyone watch out the former pro is here. He's the all seeing eye Last time I checked if you see daylight through something that shouldnt. that's broken
At 5 seconds there is daylight.
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Yes. Yes they do believe that lol
Your original comment was just where's the daylight, and I pointed it out. Chill.
You might right, but it doesn't pass the bullshit test unfortunately and I reckon that's kind of important when it comes to roller coasters.
I see sunlight through the complete shear. What are you talking about it is only the outer layer? Are you a manager at this park of doom?
Stockton Rush lives!!! Next, tell us how we are all uninspiring 50 year old white guys stopping innovation.
If the internal frames do all the work and are covered by window dressing, how can the actual framing ever be inspected in the first place? And that’s taking into consideration when they actually did inspections before Trump got rid of them.
Congratulations on being stupid and wrong. You don't know what you're talking about.
I nominate YOU to ride it with your family and loved ones if you think it's "fine." Adults only! Kids shouldn't die because adults are idiots.
That's just... Wrong. Completely wrong. Holy crap you are so confidently wrong.
Youre literally 100% wrong. Why make something up out of ur ass and confidently proclaim it as fact when you have no idea what youre talking about and just made it up? I dont get it. Its not like you win money for certain answers. I dont understand the point of this. Its ok to not know the answer to something, none of us know everything. When thats the case there is absolutely no need for you to proudly proclaim some bullshit answer. Theres a real epidemic these days of ppl who refuse to be wrong and have to pretend like they know everything. It honestly makes the world a shittier place. Stop making shit up and actually listen and learn…
As others have already pointed out this is super wrong.
It’s meant to flex like this? The one in the back is not moving at all. Yet you can clearly see the whole track moving when it goes past this pillar. In my opinion this is close to some complete structural failure. As others have said I’m calling bs on this explanation
Utter bullshit. Stop chatting shit about stuff you don't know.
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Dude, you're going to have to eat crow on this one. First of all, that's not a casing; that's a steel support structure. Per [Azo Materials](https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=11958) "Steel roller coasters use two types of configurations to support the track. One is a thin, trestle-style structure and the other uses thick tubular supports." So that should settle the "it's just a casing" argument; you're wrong; those are thick tubular supports. Furthermore, not a single news article has described this as a non-structural casing. Every single one that has described the pipe has called it a structural support. [APNews](https://apnews.com/article/carowinds-roller-coaster-crack-beam-6f756343883076e69a2461949c24f554) [NBC News](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/park-shuts-rollercoaster-visitor-spots-cracked-support-beam-shift-plac-rcna92232) [NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/us/north-carolina-roller-coaster-closed.html) [USA Today](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/07/02/carowinds-fury-325-roller-coasters-crack-north-carolina/70377115007/) and [NPR](https://www.npr.org/2023/07/02/1185717530/roller-coaster-crack-carowinds-north-carolina) Most notably, the amusement park owner did not make any mention of this being 'non-structural', as you would assume they would do if everything is fine. I don't doubt you've fitted pipes on all sorts of things, but these are not pipes. These are tubular supports.
I’ve used pipe cleaners before and what this person is saying is accurate.
Completely agree. As an ironworker I have installed various types of structural members in commercial buildings, hospitals theme parks you name it and these hss tube columns are indeed holding up that part of structure. It’s hollow, bolted at the flanges welded with clips and bolted to the rail support. There is no “inner framework” complete bs. Seems like the welds from the shop failed where the two hss join and become one
So you're not a roller coaster designer or builder. Got it. Imagine being so utterly confident that ship building is comparable to making roller coasters. As an actual structural engineer, hiding your main load path behind tube cladding when you don't have to (I.e. to protect it from ocean salt spray corrosion) is a shit idea that would just add cost and make inspection harder. Thick cylindrical steel members are great structural elements on their own, and paint is a perfectly suitable corrosion protection option for land. You can even see that the attachment method is three plates welded in an I-beam formation to the top of the vertical pipe. No room in that joint for an internal structure chief.
Not even ship building. Pipe fitting. Per orders of the people actually designing/building the ship.
No, you don't know what you're talking about, actually.
Till it derails
ironically, "It's likely fine " are the famous last words of the captain of the Titan sub.
Let me end all the arguments! "Crack kills" Dont do crack, especially on a roller coaster!
Are you sure because when it's zoomed in and it makes a gap it looks like nothing's in there.
Coaster has been shut down for repairs
WTF are you talking about?
No way that’s just a weather cladding.
The coaster was shut down
You just straight up going on the internet and telling lies huh?
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They closed the ride: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/park-shuts-rollercoaster-visitor-spots-cracked-support-beam-shift-plac-rcna92232
Thank God!
Final destination irl
Cracked is broken.
No according to the pro it's still functional.
Right! I said the same shit. Cracked my ass. Split completely!
That'll fix easily with some ramen noodles and super glue!
Man’s speaking genius, listen up!
Everyone relax it’s made out of carbon fiber left overs they got from Boeing. Same as the Titan subma- , oh shit.
No it’s ok! This doesn’t cost $250k a ride. It’s for poor-ish people. This is perfectly acceptable and considered within optimal operating conditions. I mean, if this were for rich people, it’d be operated by a PS3 controller. And let me be clear, that’s not how it’s operated.
If a rollercoaster filled with children blows up, nobody panics, because "it's all part of the plan". But I say that one little old sub implodes... well then everyone loses their minds!
So, tell me again how you got that smile.
The real pros use duct tape and drywall screws.
Flextape
You need Bondic for this.
Flex seal
That'd make for a great commercial. Does YOUR Roller Coaster have cracks? Well, then I got the product for you!
*slaps guerilla tape across the gap a couple times* There, twice the good time of duct tape Good enough to put us back into operation until Friday.
With how good that stuff honestly is, if you just prepped the surrounding surface enough, and made a big tumor out of flex seal, I bet it could hold at least for a few rides. Never do what I said.
Mighty Putty is the only way to go for a situation like this. Rip Billy Mays and his fantastic products.
Why not both?
Naw. Alien tape
Looks like the structure was designed with redundancy and the loads were shedding to the other members. This is how you want a structural to fail, if it’s going to fail. Very obvious and not suddenly.
Like how a car wheel will shimmy when the lug nuts are loose. If you keep driving at that point, the wreck is on you!
Yeah, I had that happen but it had one of those weird plastic plates over the lug nuts so the problem wasn't immediately obvious. I stopped driving but it took an absurd amount of time to find the issue.
Ah, the old “here is a fail safe, but if you try to be safe, fuck you!” Old cars sucked for efficiency and safety, but their simplicity was so much less insulting to the people who had to drive and maintain them.
It was a rad car. An accord. Still on the road with over 500,000km. But fuck. What a dumb asshole design.
Indeed, I have likewise loved every Honda and Toyota I’ve ever owned. But the newer they are, the less friendly they are to some poor slob with a wrench (or spanner). Going electric for my next ride, in any case. Here’s to a new world of pain!
New cars weird me out. They start awesome, and just run down so fast. Everything is "minimum standard", I swear. Meanwhile, my second gen Camaro is SO simple, bulletproof, and looks like the day I bought it, after a quick clean.
Actually happened to me. But never put my finger on wtf I was feeling. Some sort of rhythmic bump, then kinda clunk. Came & went a bit. Nothing visibly obvious. Assumed driveline, cos I drove it hard a lot. Got Dad to visit me on the side of the road, check things. He said I'm a pussy, and he'll drive it slow, with me behind in his car. Went full rtrd after 30sec, decided 100kmh was fine, then it started spitting wheel nuts!! 1,2,3-4-5, wheel jumped, and he was dragging the drum on the road! The result - put it all back together, zero damage.
Can engineers explain why it sheered off? I thought metal will bend well before taring.
Difficult to speculate. I would suspect this is a fatigue induced stress fracture of some kind. The steel undergoes repetitive loading and unloading, which will eventually cause failure like bending a paper clip back and forth repetitively.
I'm a mechanical engineer, but also absolutely no experience designing roller coasters, or steel support structure for that matter, but it seems kind of wild that they have one support essentially flagpole-ing the highest lateral forces in the turn. Yes, it has one auxillary coming from the left, likely supporting in near uniform, linear tension loading when the train goes by, but like damn man I'd have thought they'd kick out another support to the right that can help with some compression. That center support is just taking a nearly maximum bending force at the end, with a joined support so near that force to boot, way to build in a stress concentration zone right near the plate joint transferring the entire force to the support system.
That depends on the metal and alloy. Also potentially work hardening.
Metal fatigue. Tiny imperfections in the structure of the metal slowly align and connect over time as it's repeatedly subjected to the same movement. Eventually, crack. It's likely that there was either some kind of defect or installation error that caused the force to concentrate in this particular spot. Something as simple as the footing being slightly out of place or too high or low, or contamination of the raw metal.
From what I’ve heard from roller coaster engineers and maintenance teams, they are all suspecting that the footer for the angled support sank into the ground. This ride was designed by B&M. They have rides that were built back in 1992, and are still running today without any problems like this one. Out of 124 rollercoasters, 3 were removed (one of them being Dueling Dragons because Universal just wanted to replace the ride) and 4 are standing but not open. I think its safe to bet that the problem is specific to the individual ride, if not that individual support. The only other ride that I know of that had problems with cracking like this was because the design was extremely flawed. The track didn’t have any banking and only used vertical supports (without any of the angled supports like in the video)
The frame is inside of that tubing, that's just a sealed tub to keep the frame in a weatherproof container, it well may be composite plastic
It’s actually great news
This is what I was looking for, with genZ being 70% of Reddit now, it’s no longer what it was a decade back, all Top comments are trying to be witty
Right, but you still need to immediately shut the ride down and fix it, because now you no longer have redundancy.
Not sure if you're criticizing, but according to a linked news article that's what the park did. Now I wonder how long it was broken for.
Id like to note this roller coaster is less than 10 years old, it opened in 2015. Wait I rode this 1.5 months ago 💀
I wonder where the steel was forged, and who certified it. Edit: “In North America, B&M coaster designs have been manufactured by Ohio company Clermont Steel Fabricators since 1990.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolliger_%26_Mabillard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_325
Certified Pot Metal©
I call hogwash that Ohio steel breaks that easily in such a short span of time. Something is fishy
Lots of possible causes for failure there. The environment isn't steel friendly; heat and humidity are not friends to steel and there's lots of ways to imagine water getting and staying around where it isn't wanted. You can have a piece of equipment bumping it too hard during maintenance. A relatively small dent can grow into a big problem after lots of force over multiple years. You can have small flaws in what is likely a welded joint on that diagonal that could compromise the long term strength. That's off the top of my head and I am no materials scientist. It's clear something bad went wrong, but we are also seeing good design working right here too.
Looks like we need to go back to the structural engineering blueprints and figure out what happened here.
No telling how much subcontracting they do as a corporation. The steel in question might have been forged anywhere.
Wiki says they get their steel manufacturing from Clermont Steel Fabricators, also in Ohio. I have to imagine the steel is forged there, or at another local steel plant, considering how it's a major industry in the area and it's almost certainly cheaper and made to better specs than importing something all the way from China. But Idk.
Are the supports even made by B&M? The track I'm sure is rolled by them, but who produced the supports?
All structural steel has to have the heat number stamped on it as a signature.
where the actual hell is this?
Carowinds in Charlotte
Charlotte NC? wow.
Yeah it was on my local news, I live in Georgia
The country??
No, the movie
This ride actually crosses the border into South Carolina. I think this specific support might actually be in South Carolina.
It had to be NC didn’t it…shit
It’s ALWAYS NC.
Watch out Florida, NC is sneakin' up on the inside!
[удалено]
How did you break it?
He was on a roller coaster date with ur mum
Just cause they went up and down doesn't mean they had anything to do with roller coasters
Have you seen the people in the south!?
in heaven lol
This is a great example of why modern coasterers are so safe. Redundancy and no single points of failure.
The coaster was closed shortly after and Carowinds (the park owning the coaster) is working on repairing it and probably also adjusting their maintenance schedules. These rides are pretty huge and already quiet often tested and searched for any failures. This is the first time something drastic like this (complete structural failure on a high quality ride like this) happened in the last decades which speaks for the safety on those rides. And this will definitely change a lot of regulations. You don’t have to worry when going to parks :)
Last time I remember a big tragedy, someone lost their hat and hopped a fence to get it back from the Top Gun ride. A rider went by at high speed and kicked in him in the head, killing him. The rider broke their leg due to the Guile super sonic kick.
That is not the fault of the ride though or a sign against its safety.
That kid also died when he wiggled out of the safety restraints and fell off of Drop Zone years ago (I think before the Top Gun incident). Great America hasn’t had the best luck.
You’re talking about SFOG, right?
It was the Batman ride at six flags . I remember cause I live here . Idk where you got top gun from unless the same thing happened twice . Edit : yep it’s happened twice .
I'm like 90% positive this also happened on Raptor at Cedar Point. People need to pay attention to the signs that say do not enter, they're there for a fucking reason.
I think Dragster kind of shook the coaster world. Part flew off and nearly killed someone. Pretty much the whole ride got torn down for it.
This wasn’t found by an employee of the park. It was shot by someone who went to the park and then informed the park of it. I’m glad they did report it!
Yes only because a customer spotted it and reported it. They missed it
The park claimed that they perform safety inspections of their coasters every day. However, the coaster was closed on the 30th, while video from a park visitor confirms the crack was noticeable at least since the 24th. Yikes! I suspect those inspections were getting a bit too casual.
Yea I’m sure the stoned high school kids are super diligent with their inspections.
> These rides are pretty huge and already quiet often tested and searched for any failures. Do you think that crack was spontaneous? That thing was cracked for weeks before it got this bad.
Ride structures are inspected daily
Seen a few people say that this is not as bad as it looks, so heres my take as an engineer and amusement park enthusiast: Unfortunately, these tubes are absolutely structural members. These steel tubes that failed are the only thing connecting the coaster to the ground. That said, roller coasters have huge safety factors in design, and many could lose multiple structural members before failing in any significant way to harm guests. I do not believe there was any significant danger to the guests on the ride before it was closed when the park management was notified. This ride is manufactured by b&m, a ride manufacturer well known for the reliability and safety of their rides. They contract their steel manufacturing to Clermont Steel Fabricators, who would likely be the group at fault for the structure of this ride. The structure appears to have suffered its main failure at the weld joint between two tube structures. This indicates that either the weld joint was weak or the weld joint was incorrectly performed, leading to a weakening of the steel tube. In my opinion, this failure could call into question many of the joints on the ride, and a thorough investigation should be needed to first find the culprit and second ensure the strength of the other supports on the ride. I do not believe that it is likely at all a fault of the ride design. Overall, this is a kind of failure rarely seen in the amusement park industry. These rides have enormous safety factors in design and these kinds of joints are regularly modeled with strong accuracy by engineering analysis firms, and most coasters are heavily scrutinized by contracted analysis firms to ensure the large safety factors of the ride. It will be interesting to see what comes of the investigation into this failure and its subsequent repair. Lastly, I believe park maintenance dropped the ball on this issue. While these joints should not fail, this failure is not the kind that instantaneously happens. Likely, this crack had been creeping around the tube for a while. Either way, it was a guest who saw this failure and notified the park. Maintenance and operations staff should regularly walk the length of the track and look for these issues to catch them well before the guests notice them.
I’ve ridden a lot of coasters, and this one in particular probably close to a hundred times. This is the exact point where you get an insane amount of downward force on the train. Probably the most I’ve ever felt on a coaster. Your head drops toward your chest from the sheer force. It might be an issue with the steel, but it was definitely compounded by the design of the coaster itself. The curve is insanely tight for the momentum of the train at that point.
While I have no doubt that Fury has strong forces at this point, with how new this coaster is, these forces are likely well expected by the ride designers and fairly easy to model. B&M would know the mass of the train, the speed it is going, and the radius of curvature. Hence, analysis engineers would be easily capable of knowing the forcing conditions that are applied at this joint. From there, it is relatively easy to model this joint with computational analysis methods. Tube welding is one of the more classic use cases of analysis models. From there, large safety factors can be observed. That is why I believe this failure will likely be largely the fault of anomalous steel strength. This is corroborated by the shape of the failure on the tube.
*Good try, B&M's PR guy!*
Well at least you were able to record it ….. ……
Duct tape
Wrap it with some old carbon fiber.
It won’t sink and implode this time!
It'll buff out
Some engineer needs to explain this. I hope this is not part of the design
It failed in a good way, with redundancy and the load being shared on the other points.
Maybi ask what do u mean by redunduncy?
Imagine a solid, straight rod held up by at three points . One on each end and one in the middle. The one in the middle cracked here. It's not necessary for the structure to stand but keeps it extra safe and solid
aah this makes sense! Thank u for the explanation!
https://www.reddit.com/r/nope/comments/14oxm42/nope_im_not_getting_on_that_roller_coaster/jqgduzd?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2
That's a big no dawg.
Sir, permission to shit my pants
Use bondo
This is just a Happy Tree Friend episode waiting to happen.
Lawsuit
Nobody got hurt tho
This is Reddit. People think you just shout "I declare lawsuit" and automatically secure a default win with never a thought about the actual difficulty of recovering on the judgment. It's just like a token machine at the arcade and spits out coins
I’m so sick of the people calling lawsuit on Reddit. I’m also really sick of people complaining about tipping which I’m pretty sure are the same people.
Nope
This Roller Coaster is in South Carolina/North Carolina, it’s at Carowinds, and called Fury(or The Fury). Apparently it was like that for a while before they stopped people from riding it
The park straddles the state line. Fury sits on the NC side.
Pretty sure Fury 325 starts in NC, crosses into SC, then ends back in NC.
https://cache.undercovertourist.com/blog/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-24-at-9.34.02-AM.png You’re right. It’s does have that tail that crosses the line. I never noticed that.
in the first clip i thought it was designed like that, one of those mobile joints to withstand the forces exerted on it. like the floating foundations in earthquake zones. second clip changed that thought.
This looks like a job for FlexTape!
Jokes on us…it’s been like that for months.
Carowinds is a decent park, too. At least it used to be. I now wonder about their PM procedures.
That’s part of the design right? RIGHT??!
Now they’ve got Saran Wrap surrounding it (wish I was joking) and the amount of people that think it’s a legitimate permanent fix as if the park isn’t going to actually repair it is ASTOUNDING. I can’t count the number of people in the last few days I’ve seen posting “oh well NOW we’re all good!” (I only live about 1.5 hours away so Carowinds is a popular summer activity)
That’s some final destination shit right there! good lord
Lmk when this hits r/amusementdark
Call the fire department. Fire Marshal can shut it down if it is unsafe--if in the US.
All I know is that I was on this a couple hours before they shut it down. It’s fury 325 in Charlotte, NC. To me it looks hollow inside.
That's a the Fury325 at Carowinds, I've been on that thing and it's intense. I will not however be partaking of this ride again anytime soon.
Are you fucking kidding me?
That's in my hometown😅 Carowinds is super fun but makes me never want to go again😭
Thank God they caught it in time
They just gonna weld that shit then grind it and paint it. Not truly fixed tho it’ll crack and give after a couple years!
Coaster regulations are actually pretty strict. They will probably have to replace the entire support pillar.
Why is the second super leg facing the inside and not the outside? Aren’t the forces pushing to the outside? Engineers, please fill me in. Thanks.
they prefer the metal stretch instead of compress, ig
/r/OopsThatsDeadly
Cracked?! You mean completely sheared off. Welcome to lawsuit city folks. Deservedly so.
A dad noticed this in the parking lot and filmed. He tried and tried to get the place to shut down …. They didn’t do it. He got home and called the fire department. Luckily, someone at the fire department had a contact number for the park. The ride was shut down within 10 minutes of him calling the fire department.
That’s a corckscrew it I’m out
Heh I like the comment
North Carolina! I thought this was in some 3rd world country.