Amusement devices – Roundabout – Occupant or article carriage follows stationary,...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-30
2001-01-23
Nguyen, Kien T. (Department: 3712)
Amusement devices
Roundabout
Occupant or article carriage follows stationary,...
C472S089000, C104S138100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06176788
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an amusement ride which employs fluid dynamics to accelerate an object, especially a participant, in a vehicle that forms part of a track-mounded ride.
2. Description of the Related Art
The traditional roller coaster utilizes a chain drive to pull one or more vehicles to the highest point on the track and thereby create significant potential energy. Gravity then accelerates the vehicle downhill, exchanging potential energy for kinetic energy. Sufficient kinetic energy is recovered to permit the vehicle to ascend a subsequent incline, thereby converting kinetic energy into potential energy. Energy losses, of course, dictate that each subsequent hill be smaller. Curves are also incorporated in the track, ultimately creating a closed course, viz., a course where the end of the track is connected to the beginning of the track. The chain drive is necessarily limited in a capability for acceleration and, consequently, moves the vehicle at quite slow speeds.
A more modern version of the roller coaster utilizes a series of linear induction motors to create the initial acceleration for a roller coaster. One such ride has been produced by Premier Rides for Six Flags Them Parks Inc. and is termed the BATMAN & ROBIN ride. The present inventor could, however, locate no patent for coasters which are initially accelerated by linear induction motors. Many linear induction motors are required to accelerate the vehicle, and such motors are quite susceptible to failure.
The only roller coaster of which the present inventor is aware which is powered by a pressurized gas is the Tubular Roller Coaster of U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462. Though, as the name of this device implies, the entire movement of the vehicle is within a tube, which substantially detracts from the desired excitement participants on roller coasters derive from being in an open environment where such participants can feel the air rush past them and visibly perceive speed and changes in elevation. Although U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462 does not explicitly state that air is continuously injected into the tube in order to push the vehicle, this is strongly suggested by the drawing and the language in the disclosure which designates “a blower
5
which propels the wheeled containers/capsules
6
along the tubular route
1
. . . ”
A similar suggestion of continuous air movement applies to the improved pneumatic car-truck described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 64,401. That patent states, in pertinent part, “ . . . the truck . . . can be propelled by the air currents in the pneumatic tube in the usual manner.”
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,615 utilizes pressurized gas vertically to eject a vehicle from a tube. Gravity eventually stops the vehicle so that it falls along a guide cable back into the tube, where compression of air decelerates the vehicle at a rate controlled by pressure relief valves. Just as in the case of U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462, however, the participant is completely enclosed by the vehicle. Furthermore, no track is contemplated by the invention of U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,615.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention utilizes pressurized gas to provide the initial acceleration to the vehicle of a track-mounted ride in lieu of the traditional chain drive or the more modern but failure-prone linear induction motors. Subsequent acceleration may occur through the descent of the vehicle from a height to which the initial acceleration had enabled the vehicle to attain. It is, however, not necessary to supply compressed gas throughout the ride, as appears to be the case with U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462.
There are two primary methods of employing the pressurized gas to accelerate the vehicle. The preferred method is to accelerate a catch which releasably engages the vehicle.
The catch may be accelerated by the Pneumatic Device for Accelerating and Decelerating Objects of U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,686, which patent is hereby incorporated by reference and which Device—for convenience—will herein be termed the “Pneumatic SPACE SHOT Accelerator”; by the Device for Accelerating and Decelerating Objects of pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/862,841, which application is owned by the present inventor, which application was filed on May 23, 1997, which application is hereby incorporated by reference, and which Device—for convenience—will herein be termed the “Gas-based SPACE SHOT Accelerator”; by the Device for Accelerating and Decelerating Objects of U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,841, which patent is hereby incorporated by reference and which Device—for convenience—will herein be termed the “TURBO DROP Accelerator”; or by a TURBO DROP Accelerator where the cable has been replaced by a rod to which the catch has been connected, which—for convenience—will herein be termed the “Rod-containing TURBO DROP Accelerator”.
In the cases of the Pneumatic SPACE SHOT Accelerator, the Gas-based SPACE SHOT Accelerator, and the TURBO DROP Accelerator, the carrier is replaced by the catch of the present invention. The catch is then accelerated as described for the carrier in the relevant patents and patent application. The SPACE SHOT Accelerator and the Gas-based SPACE SHOT Accelerator would be the embodiments of the relevant patent and patent application which do not have a second guide pulley. And, preferably, the TURBO DROP Accelerator and the Rod-containing TURBO DROP Accelerator would be operated in the second mode, i.e., the “boost and stop” mode described on line 8 through line 34 in column 7 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,841.
It should be observed, however, that the inventions of U.S. Pat. No. 5,632,686, of pending application Ser. No. 08/862,841, and of U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,841 accelerate and decelerate only a carrier that is an integral portion of the inventions of those patents and which never is detached from the device of the invention. Until the present invention, no one had conceived that the carrier could be replaced with a catch that could accelerate a vehicle that would then be detached from the accelerator and move independently. And this is especially true in the field of roller coasters where the linear induction motor has been a less than ideally successful attempt to fill the long-sought need of replacing the old mechanical chain drive.
The second primary method for employing the pressurized gas to accelerate the vehicle is to propel the vehicle from a tube open only at the end from which the vehicle exits. Attached to the other end of the tube is a source of compressed gas, preferably air.
Near the rear of the vehicle, a shield is attached to the vehicle. The shield has a cross section that is shaped approximately the same as the cross section of the tube from which the vehicle is initially propelled. The cross section of the shield is, however, slightly smaller than the cross section of the tube. (Of course, the body of the vehicle may be so designed that it forms the shield rather than having a separate shield attached to the vehicle.)
When it is desired to propel the vehicle from the tube, the compressed gas is rapidly injected through a valve into the closed first end of the tube. Since the shield covers most of the cross section of the tube, as the injected compressed gas expands, the vehicle is forced toward and through the open second end of the tube. The momentum of the vehicle then carries it along the path of the track.
Preferably, the size of the shield is sufficiently large that relatively low-pressure compressed air can be utilized.
Again there is only an initial acceleration, replacing the traditional chain drive or the linear induction motors. There is not a continuous supply of compress gas, as appears to be the case with U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462.
Additionally, unlike the track of U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,462, the track of the present invention preferably does not, when a vehicle is being used, enclose the vehicle. This is feasible since a continuous supply of air is not required to move the vehicle along the track; a supply of air is required only during the initial a
Fehr Thompson E.
Nguyen Kien T.
LandOfFree
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