Race With An Interactive Roller Coaster

2023 Author : Hannah Pearcy | [email protected] . Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:12

Climb up, buckle up, operate the throttle yourself and accelerate with 1.2 g - the concept of the interactive roller coaster makes it possible. Behind it is a sophisticated drive system that the roller coaster builder Maurer Rides designed especially for this. The system is used, for example, in the Mirabilandia Park for the new Desmo Race Coaster, which also has the special feature that two vehicles can compete . The new roller coaster was implemented by Maurer Rides together with Ducati and the Mirabilandia Park.

Ducati Panigale V4 stood model

The name "Desmo" comes from "Desmodronik" - a special positively controlled valve control that is installed in the Ducati Panigale V4. The Panigale V4 model was also the model for Desmo Race, which the engineers at Maurer Rides put on the roller coaster track.

Picture gallery

Picture gallery with 9 pictures

There are even original Ducati components of the Ducati Panigale V4 installed - lights and the display with gear and speed indicator - and also fully functional. The front with its distinctive lights, the tank, the windshield and the rear lights have been integrated into the design. In addition, a sound generator provides Ducati sound when accelerating.

The Desmo Race Coaster should feel as if you were sitting on a real motorcycle and driving yourself - and even against the bet. The roller coaster consists of two side-by-side tracks, on which a vehicle with two people starts in parallel. You can race at your own pace by accelerating and braking.

The drive technology

For an interactive roller coaster, the engineers at Maurer Rides worked mainly on the drive technology, because this requires vehicles with drive, brakes and permanent position detection. So the search for a suitable drive system began, in which, however, the conventional variants such as friction wheels or LSM had to be excluded one after the other. The only useful option was the gear drive , which until then was only available for completely different applications.

The solution finally came with a newly developed gear technology, the so-called spike drive technology. At the end of 2010, the first spike test chassis was already moving with impressive dynamics on a 10 m long straight track. However, it took four more years for the first ride-ready test system to be built, with a 50 m rail length in the hall of the conveyor technology institute at the University of Stuttgart. A year later, the first roller coaster was built using the new spike drive technology.

Powerful electric drive catapults vehicles to top speed

The latest building is Desmo Race. The new spike drive is in every vehicle, in the form of an extremely powerful electric drive: With a torque of 1050 Nm, drivers can catapult themselves to top speed within a few seconds. The torque is transmitted via a gear to a rack that sits directly on the rail . So no slipping is possible and no energy is lost in friction losses.

Facts and figures about the train

Opening: 2019

Rail length: 2 x 525 m

Max. Rail height : 22 m

Drive: electric drive

Power transmission: 100%

traction (form of acceleration) = acceleration: 1.2 g (11.7m / s²)

torque: 1050 Nm

speed: 80 km / h

Vehicle: Panigale V4, 2-seater (from 6 years, from height 120 cm) Number of

vehicles: 12 (2 x 6)

Capacity: 1000 pph (travel time 60 sec)

Manufacturer: Maurer Rides GmbH

Operator: Mirabilandia, IT

Base area: 225 mx 60 m

This achieves 100% traction . And there is one more thing that characterizes the track: Always and everywhere can accelerate with a propulsion of over 1 g, even out of a curve or in vertical segments. The same applies to braking, which can sometimes fail suddenly. Because braking also works via the toothing technology. This saves the usual block brakes and built-in components in roller coaster construction and thus removes many restrictions on where and how highlights can be placed on the route.

Vertical rails let the driver sit on the rail

The vertical rails are also new on the roller coaster. The driving tubes are not next to each other, but one above the other. This allowed the driver and front passenger to be lowered to just above the upper driving tube. The legs are left and right of the rail, you literally sit on the rail.

An interesting side effect of the vertical rail is its favorable statics. It enables large distances between supports, thus reducing the number of supports and foundations. In addition, the small and therefore light two-seater allows a simpler steel construction with small foundations.

Drive technology with high efficiency

Spike tracks are economical in operation because the drive technology works with an extraordinarily high degree of efficiency. At full acceleration, a vehicle engine can run up to max. Tap 130 kW. When braking, energy is generated again as a generator, which is fed back into the power rail largely without loss and used by the next vehicle. A long-term measurement with three vehicles at full load resulted in an energy consumption of 15 kWh for the entire system.

Since there are no brakes and lifts, maintenance work focuses on the vehicles and can also take place in parallel with ongoing operations.