EP1201280B1 - Installation for amusement park, known as roller-coaster - Google Patents

Abstract

The roller coaster vehicles comprise a first part (4) connected to the rails (2,2') so as to be able to be moved along the circuit. A second part (13) has the passenger seats (14) assembled on it. The second part is assembled on the first part by means of a slewing ring (12) which allows the second part to rotate on itself. In the passenger boarding platform the track plane composed by the rails forms transversely angle ( alpha ) relative to the horizontal such that after the vehicle second part has rotated bout 90o the plane of the passengers' backs is vertical.

Description

The present invention relates to a amusement park facility called roller coaster, and a vehicle for such an installation.

Roller Coasters are some of the most impressive and spectacular amusement park attractions. These are circuits consisting of one or more rails along which vehicles move. These vehicles are initially towed to the highest point of the circuit, then they travel the circuit under the combined effect of the route and the only gravity, and can reach speeds well over 100 km / h.

The circuit is arranged to offer passengers varied impressions and sensations that result to a large extent from the various sensations of acceleration that the route provides, including sequences of various acrobatics figures including loops, spirals and pull-ups. corks, but which also result from subjective impressions, namely feelings of vertigo, fear, illusion of risk or surprise in the face of the appearance of unexpected phenomena. In short, the goal is to offer roller coasters passengers an experience and sensations that are out of the ordinary.

There are two main categories of roller coasters, depending on whether the vehicles ride on the rails or hang under the rails.

In the category of suspended roller coasters, a very popular subcategory is that of roller coasters which have the particularity of having neither wall nor floor around the passengers. Such a roller coaster is described in the European Patent No. EP 0545860 . In this roller coaster, passengers sit in suspended seats bogies, the back perpendicular to the track formed by the rails.

In a form derived from this type of suspended roller coaster, the passengers make the route along the circuit, the back disposed substantially parallel to the track formed by the rails. In this form of installation, passengers do not see the rails and their view is not obstructed by other vehicles. In a way, they have the impression of flying. Such installations are described in particular in US Pat. US 5,979,333 and in the publications of international patent applications our WO 99/22829 and WO 99/22830 . In order to be able to easily board and disembark the passengers, the seats of these installations are arranged so as to be able to tilt from a first position, during embarkation or disembarkation, in which the passengers have their backs arranged substantially perpendicular to the track. in a second position, which they keep all along the route, and wherein said passengers have the back arranged substantially parallel to the track. These installations thus require relatively heavy mechanisms for tilting the seats, the cylinders of said mechanisms being subjected to significant efforts.

The object of the present invention is to provide a suspended roller coaster in which the passengers can make the journey along the circuit with the back arranged substantially parallel to the track, but of simpler design, the mechanisms necessary for the boarding and transportation. landing of passengers being less heavy to achieve.

For this purpose, the present invention relates to a facility amusement park called roller coaster, comprising a circuit formed of rails along which runs at least one vehicle having a first portion coupled to the rails so as to be able to move along the circuit and a second part, mounted in movable coupling on the first part and arranged so as to accommodate at least one passenger in at least one seat, backrest and seat, associated with a passenger restraint system in the seat, so that when the vehicle is traveling the circuit, the passenger is suspended under the rails with the sound plane non-perpendicular back to the plane of the track constituted by the rails, said installation being characterized in that the coupling of said second part of the vehicle to said first part allows said second part to rotate about itself around an axis substantially perpendicular to the plane of the seat back.

The present invention also relates to a roller coaster attraction installation vehicle, said vehicle comprising a first part comprising means for coupling the vehicle to the rails of the installation, so as to allow the vehicle to move along the circuit. , and a second part, mounted in movable coupling on the first part and arranged to accommodate at least one passenger in at least one seat forming backrest and seat, associated with a passenger restraint in the seat, so that the plane of the seat back, and therefore the plane of the passenger's back, is inclined at an angle between 0 and 30 ° with respect to the plane of the track formed by said rails and characterized in that the coupling of said second portion to said first portion allows said second portion to rotate about itself about an axis substantially perpendicular to the plane of the file of the seat.

One of the main features of the vehicles of this installation is that the tilting of the passenger support from a position substantially perpendicular to the track to a position substantially parallel to the path required in the installations described above, is replaced by a simple mechanism of rotation of said support on itself about an axis substantially perpendicular to the plane of the back of the passenger seat.

Such a construction has the particular advantage of being much simpler to achieve than that required for the switchover of known installations. On the other hand, it allows to board and unload passengers parallel to the wharf and no longer perpendicular to the wharf, thus shortening the downtime of the trains at the embarkation / disembarkation stations.

• la figure 1 est une vue latérale d'une portion de circuit montrant deux véhicules d'un train en mouvement,
• la figure 2 est une vue en coupe perpendiculaire à la voie et au quai d'embarquement/débarquement d'un train à l'arrêt dans une station d'embarquement/débarquement,
• la figure 3 est une vue depuis dessus dans le sens de la flèche Y des deux derniers véhicules du train de la figure 2,
• la figure 4 est une vue dans le sens de la flèche X des deux derniers véhicules du train de la figure 2, et
• la figure 5 est une vue en perspective partiellement éclatée d'une esquisse schématique illustrant un exemple du mécanisme de rotation du support passager.

Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from reading the description which follows, given by way of example, and which refers to the figures of the drawing in which:

• the figure 1 is a side view of a portion of a circuit showing two vehicles of a moving train,
• the figure 2 is a sectional view perpendicular to the track and at the loading / unloading platform of a stationary train at a loading / unloading station,
• the figure 3 is a view from above in the direction of arrow Y of the last two vehicles of the train of the figure 2 ,
• the figure 4 is a view in the direction of the X arrow of the last two vehicles of the train of the figure 2 , and
• the figure 5 is a partially exploded perspective view of a schematic sketch illustrating an example of the rotation mechanism of the passenger support.

In this document, the name of the plane of the passenger seat back designates a plane substantially parallel to the plane of the back of the passenger restrained in the seat, the plane of the passenger's back being taken here in its usual sense, that is to say say it is an average plane determined by the shoulders and hips of the passenger.

Similarly, the path formed by the rails of the circuit, when the circuit comprises two rails, a left surface tape as a whole and two generators are formed by the axes of the rails. However, locally, relative to a given vehicle, the corresponding portion of track is almost flat and that is why we talk about the plane of the track. In cases where such a portion of a lane is not planar, the plane of the track is the average tangent plane of said track portion.

A first portion of a circuit showing two vehicles according to the invention in motion is represented in FIG. figure 1 . The circuit comprises a track 1, constituted by two rails 2, 2 '(see figure 2 ) of tubular shape, and along which vehicles move 3. The rails are integral with a structure (not shown in the drawing), itself fixed on the floor via columns. This structure, which is not directly the subject of the present invention, will not be described here in more detail, the person skilled in the art being otherwise quite capable of producing it.

Each of the vehicles 3 comprises a chassis 4 on which is mounted, by means of a ball bearing ring 12, a turntable 13 supporting seats 14 for receiving passengers.

As we see in figures 1 and 2 , the chassis 4 of each vehicle is secured to two pairs of bogies 5, 5 ', each of the bogies of one of said pairs cooperating with one of the rails 2, 2'. For this purpose, each of the bogies has three pairs of wheels 6, 6 ', 6 "arranged to cooperate with the rail in a manner known per se and already described in the prior documents, particularly in the European Patent No. EP 0545860 .

The seats comprise backrest members 15 having armrest portions 16 and a seating element 17. The passenger is held in the seat by means of an upper harness 19, of the forward tilting type and hinged to the seat. its upper part on the support of the seat 14, and a device 20 for retaining the legs, also tilting forwards and hinged at its lower part to the lower end 18 of the seat frame. Such an arrangement of the seats is also in itself already known and therefore will not be described here in more detail.

The layout of the vehicle will be better understood using the figure 5 . The frame 4 comprises a front frame member 7 and a rear frame member 9 made integral by means of a central beam 10, on which they are fixed, said beam being hinged at 21 between the two frame members. The front frame 7 comprises a front portion 8 of substantially rectangular parallelepiped shape and a rear portion 22 having a lower inclined surface, for example 10 °, with respect to the front portion and on which is mounted an orientation ring 12 made integral. a turntable 13 on which are fixed the supports 14 of the seats for receiving passengers. A coupling bar 11 for coupling the vehicle to another vehicle is attached to the front end of the central beam 10.

The slewing ring 12 may be a slewing ring with cylindrical or tapered roller bearings, or any other known type. Ball and roller orientation rings are for example marketed under the trademark "RKS" by the French company RKS (a SKF group company) in Avalon, France.

As illustrated in figures 1 and 5 , the turntable 13 is in its traveling position of the circuit, the plane of the seat backs, and therefore the plane of the back of the passengers, being inclined at an angle of about 10 ° relative to the plane of the track. Of course, this inclination may be different and depends on the embodiment of the vehicle and in particular on its chassis. Thus, according to a variant not shown in the drawings, this inclination can be chosen less than 10 °, for example close to 0 °, so that the passengers have their back substantially parallel to the track. This inclination can also be chosen greater than 10 °. However, for the passengers to have the impression of flying, an inclination in the range between 0 and 30 ° is preferably chosen.

As represented in figure 2 , to allow the boarding and disembarking of passengers, when the train is at the station, the transverse axis vv of the plane of the track formed by the two rails 2, 2 ', which axis, in the stations of the circuits of the prior art, is usually in a horizontal position, is here inclined at an angle α relative to the horizontal, about 110 ° in the example shown in FIG. figure 2 . It then suffices to rotate the rotating plates 13 of the vehicles by about 90 ° so that the passengers are in the position represented in FIG. figure 2 . The angle at which the rotating plates 13 must be rotated depends inter alia on the angle of the track in the station.

The two views represented at figures 3 and 4 illustrate the ease with which passengers can then board and disembark. Since passengers no longer land perpendicular to the wharf, but parallel to the wharf, the process of disembarking passengers and boarding new passengers is faster, which in turn reduces train downtime. allows to increase their rate.

According to alternative embodiments, the angle that forms transversely the plane of the track relative to the horizontal in the loading / unloading station may be greater than or less than 110 °. Preferably, this angle will be chosen substantially equal to the angle between the plane of the seat back and the plane of the lane in the vehicle travel position, so as to allow easy disembarkation / embarkation of passengers.

Many variations as to the arrangement of the vehicle are of course achievable. In particular, according to an embodiment not shown, the chassis 4 can be made in one piece with a single pair of bogies as in the case of the vehicle described in FIG. US Patent No. 5,979,333 . Similarly, the ball positioning ring 12 can be replaced by any other suitable device for rotation of the seat support member. The number of passengers of a vehicle can of course also be less than or greater than four.

Claims (7)

1. Installation for amusement park, known as roller coaster, comprising a circuit formed by rails, along which at least one vehicle travels, said vehicle comprising a first portion coupled with the rails so as to be able to move along the circuit and a second portion, mounted with a mobile coupling, on the first portion and so arranged as to be able to accommodate at least one passenger in at least one seat, forming a seat and a back, associated with a device for securing the passenger in the seat, so that, when the vehicle travels along the circuit, the passenger hangs from under the rails, the plane of his/her back not being perpendicular to the plane of the track constituted by the rails, characterized in that the coupling of said second portion of the vehicle with the first portion enables said second portion to rotate about an axis substantially perpendicular to the plane of the seat back.
2. Installation according to claim 1, characterized in that the vehicle is so arranged that, in the circuit travelling position, the angle between the plane of the seat back and the plane of the track is selected in the interval of 0 to 30°.
3. Installation according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the rotation of said second portion with respect to said first portion is performed using a slewing ring.
4. Installation according to one of the preceding claims, comprising at least an embarkment/disembarkment station, characterized in that, in said station, the plane of the track constituted by the rails transversally forms an angle (α) with respect to the horizontal, such angle being so selected that, when said second portion has rotated by about 90°, the plane of the passengers' back is in a substantially vertical position.
5. Installation according to claim 4, characterized in that in said embarkment/disembarkment station, the angle transversally formed by the plane of the track with respect to the horizontal is substantially equal to the angle between the plane of the seat back and the plane of the track in the vehicle travelling position.
6. A vehicle for amusement installation known as roller coaster, said vehicle comprising a first portion including means for coupling said vehicle with the rails of the installation, so as to enable the vehicle to move along the circuit, and a second portion, mounted with a mobile coupling on the first portion and so arranged as to accommodate at least one passenger in at least one seat forming a seat and a back, associated with a device for securing the passenger in the seat, the plane of the seat back not being perpendicular to the plane of the track constituted by said rails, characterized in that the assembly is so arranged that the plane of the seat back and thus the plane of the passenger's back, is inclined by an angle of 0 to 30° with respect to the plane of the track constituted by said rails and in that the coupling of said second portion with said first portion enables the second portion to rotate about an axis substantially perpendicular to the plane of the seat back.
7. A vehicle according to claim 6, characterized in that the rotation of said second portion with respect to said first portion is performed using a slewing ring.

Images