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Free Fall Attraction as a Practical and Theoretical Project in the Electrical Engineering Education
Fredrik Carlsson, Juliette Soulard, and Henrik Grop

AbstractIn the first year of the studies in the five-year Master of Science programme in Electrical Engineering at KTH, there is a course named Electro project. The students that take this compulsory course choose between several projects and this paper describes a newly invented project called Free Fall, which practically and theoretically demonstrates in a simple and interesting way important electrical engineering equations for the students. The students study, calculate and build a gondola that first accelerates when it falls freely along a tower from its top and then decelerate with eddy current brakes. The students learn apart from modelling of physical phenomena, mechanical construction, validation, measurements and collaboration within the group as well as with the laboratory staff. Index TermsTeaching, education, eddy current brakes.

II. FREE FALL DESCRIPTION The amusement park Grna Lund in Stockholm, Sweden has an attraction called Free Fall. It consists of a tower which has a height of approximately 70 m and three gondolas that can move vertically along the tower, which is seen in Figure 1 and 2. The attraction was built in 1998 [1] and attracts people who in a safe way want to get a feeling of how it is to fall free and/or want to feel high G-forces, without risking their lives as for instance in a parachute jump.

I. INTRODUCTION the first year of the studies in the five-year Master of In Science programme in Electrical Engineering (EE) at KTH,

there is a compulsory course named Electro project. The course is divided into several parts, such as lecturing in project planning, project work, writing a report and a poster presentation. The aim of the course is to illustrate electrical engineering in projects for the students in an interesting and simple way. The parts are common for all students, except for the project work hosted by different labs (research groups) at the school of EE. The students choose a project, in which they work in groups of four people. This paper describes the free fall project, which practically demonstrates in a simple and interesting way important electrical engineering equations. The project was invented 2005 and was run for the first time in spring 2006. The project part is run during one week, during this week the students do not have any other courses and can dedicate their time entirely to this project.

Figure 1: The Free Fall at the amusement park Grna Lund.

Manuscript received June 30, 2006. F. Carlsson, Ph.D., is with the Laboratory of Electrical Machines and Power Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, KTH. Teknikringen 33, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden, tel: (+46)-87907747, fax: (+46)-8-205268, e-mail: fredrikc@kth.se J. Soulard, Ph.D., is with the Laboratory of Electrical Machines and Power Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, KTH. H. Grop, M.Sc., is with the Laboratory of Electrical Machines and Power Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, KTH.

In each gondola may up to four people sit up, which means that 12 people take a seat before the ride starts. When the passengers take seat in the gondola, they have to put safety belts on. The gondolas are then slowly lifted up along the tower, as the ride starts. When the gondolas reach the top after 45 seconds, the gondolas are stopped and the passengers may enjoy the view over Stockholm for a while. After some time, the three gondolas are released simultaneously; and fall freely without brakes for about 50 m, which takes approximately

450 three seconds. During the free fall, the speed increases to the peak speed of 100 km/h (30 m/s). During the last 15 m, eddy current brakes slow down the three gondolas. During this part the G-force is peaking 6 times the gravity force. The G-force is varied during the fall in a smooth way, so that the force is growing from zero level to peak level and then reducing back to zero level. This is done by letting the gondolas pass several sections containing different alloys in the eddy current brakes, with different resistivity. In the last few meters standard brakes are used, to achieve zero speed. This is done since it is not possible with eddy current brakes, due to the fact that speed is needed to create a force.

Figure 2: The Free Fall seen from the gondola during a fall.

III. EDDY CURRENT BRAKES The eddy current brakes at the real Free Fall consist of two permanent magnets mounted on the gondola and a vertical bar mounted on the tower. The bar is 15 m high and has a thickness of 6 mm. The permanent magnets have a height of 2 m and a width of 14 cm. They are mounted so that they are on both sides of the bar, which means that the flux goes from one of the magnets through the bar to the other magnet and returns through an iron yoke. There is of course air between the magnet and the bar. The bar is assembled in sections, and each section contains a special alloy, which has a specific resistance to get the right deceleration (braking force) of the gondola. The weight of the gondola is about 1500 kg. IV. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The goal of the project is to build a functioning simplified mini version of the Free Fall attraction which includes calculations, measurements, mechanical construction, and adjustments. The final version of the mini version of the Free Fall consists of a tower made of a transparent cylinder of height 2 m and diameter of 9 cm standing on a 30 cm height copper cylinder with the same diameter, see Figure 3 4. The thickness of the transparent cylinder wall is 3 mm. Inside the lower part of the tower, there is a copper cylinder with diameter 9 cm. The gondola is made from an aluminium cylinder, the height is 15 cm and the diameter is about 9 cm. The cylinder has been cut vertically, to have 10 flat sides. On the flat sides of the aluminium gondola, permanent magnets are mounted, see Figure 3. There is one top row and a bottom row.

Figure 3. The mini version of the Free Fall. Left: Gondola at the top, Right: Gondola falls down

Figure 4: The gondola in the Mini version of the Free Fall. Left: Seen on top, Right: Seen from the side.

This configuration with two copper cylinders and two magnet rows, gives 5 cases (sections) with different braking force. In each section the braking force is not constant, since the force depends on the speed of the gondola. The students need to calculate the braking force profile, which should start gentle and increase to a peak force and slow down the gondola enough before it touches the ground. The force profile is then used to calculate how many magnets (and which) that have to be used.

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V. THEORETICAL WORK Before the students start assembling the Free Fall, they have to do calculations in order to understand the physics that describes the behaviour of gondola during the fall. The students are given three tasks that have to be solved and be shown to the assisting teacher before going on to the assembling (practical) part. These are: a) Calculate the force on the gondola during deceleration, b) Calculate the steady-state speed, c) Calculate the number of magnets needed. The students are given the equations (1) - (3) to calculate the force on the gondola from the magnets interacting with the copper.

v = mg

B V1 N
2

(6)

The number of magnets N that has to be used is then:

N = mg

B V1v
2

(7)

The final speed should be (nice and gentle) v = 0,2 m/s just before the gondola hits the ground. The weight of the gondola is around to be about m = 0,4 kg. Assuming that the magnet flux penetrates about 7 mm in the copper with a flux density of 50% of the remanence of the magnet material, the number of magnets is:

r r r r E = v B = J r r r v r Fm = IL B = J AL B

(1) (2) (3)

0,400 9,81 1,72 10 8 N= 14 ( 0, 2 50%) 2 0,014 0,025 0,007 0, 2

(7)

r v r r F = Fm mg = ma

The above assumptions are given to the students, and they are of course extremely simplified, but it is the only way for them to get an answer. The students also assemble the data in Table 1, by measuring the mechanical components.
TABLE 1: DATA Quantity Transparent cylinder - Height - Outer diameter - Inner diameter Copper cylinder I - Height - Outer diameter - Inner diameter Copper cylinderII - Height - Outer diameter - Inner diameter Gondola - Height - Outer diameter max - Outer diameter min - Inner diameter - Weight Magnets - Height - Width - Thickness - Density - Weight - Flux density Value 2000 90 84 301 84 75 284 90 75 98 98 93 90,2 0,2 14 25 4 7700 0,01 0,2 Unit mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm kg mm mm mm kg/m3 kg T

This is of course simplified, since the flux leakage is not fully taken into account, etc. However, the calculations are thought to be close enough to demonstrate the principle. The students write a small simulation programme in Matlab as well, to show the dynamics of the mini Free Fall and to verify and support the results from the calculations. VI. RESULTS FROM THEORETICAL WORK The students find out that the total vertical force F on the gondola is expressed by (4), where m is the total mass of the gondola and magnets, g = -9.82 m/s2 is the gravity, v is the speed, the flux density B is the magnet flux in the copper without eddy currents, the volume V of copper in the magnet flux, and the friction coefficient is denoted .

F = ma = mg

B 2V

v v

(4)

The steady state is reached when the speed is unchanged, that is when the force F is zero. If the friction is neglected, the final speed v is then:

v = mg

B 2V

(5)

If each magnet creates the flux density B in the copper volume V1, the equation can be written as (6), where N is the number of magnets.

VII. PRACTICAL AND MECHANICAL WORK When the calculations are made, the components have to be assembled together and the Free Fall system should be tested. During this phase, the students learn to take into

450 account some of the practical aspects, which were neglected during the calculations. The students are given two types of magnets (NdFeB), to choose between. The two types was a) light, flat, B = 0,2 T and b) heavy, cubic and B = 0,4 T. The magnets in the final construction are glued to the gondola, however during testing they are mounted with tape. The students can test the two types of magnets, the number that is needed to be used and the configuration of the magnets (for instance if all magnets should be mounted with the same magnetic pole pointing to the centre of the gondola, or if every other is better). VIII. RESULTS FROM PRACTICAL AND MECHANICAL WORK In this part of the project, the students learned among other things that: More magnets are needed than calculated to get a high braking force. In the final version, twenty magnets were used to get it work properly. The students also realised that more magnets increase the weight of the gondola, which reduces the wanted high deceleration. Light-weighted magnets are preferred, even if the flux density is lower. The weight of the gondola was too high. Furthermore, the gondola given to the students had only five flat sides, by cutting the gondola to have ten flat sides, the weight reduced from 300 g to 200 g. It also made it possible to have ten magnets in a row. The assembled gondola weighted finally 405 g. The air-gap between the cylinder and the gondola had to be increased to reduce friction. The air-gap was increased from 0,1 mm to 0,2 mm. This also reduced the weight of the gondola, as the interior of the aluminium cylinder was machined. The flux in the air-gap can be increased by mounting an iron bar around the magnets. However the weight increased so much that the deceleration did not change to the better. The students also understood that iron inside the copper cylinder is not a good alternative, since the gondola misaligns instantly and is stopped due to friction. The magnets were mounted with the every other magnetic pole pointing to the centre of the gondola. Small spring dampers were added to the bottom of the gondola to get a nice ending of the ride. The tower needed to be mounted on a flat surface to get it to stand easily, without falling. Copper cylinder II had to be made. The copper cylinder I given to the students had a too high airgap to give enough deceleration. However it serves as bringing the speed down, before the

4 gondola passes cylinder II. The deceleration zone is longer with two cylinders, which reduce the Gforce, since the gondola has twice the height to decelerate along.

Figure 5: The cutting of the copper cylinder II.

Figure 6: The copper cylinders I and II.

Figure 7: The gondola in the Mini version of the Free Fall.

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5 The collection of data was then used by the students to derive some functions of the position, speed and acceleration. The functions are plotted as function of time in Figure 10 12. It can be noted that the G-force became higher (95,1 m/s2 = 9,7 G) than in the real Free Fall (6 G). Such high levels are not good for humans.

Figure 8: The gondola at the bottom of the Free Fall.

Figure 10: Position (m) as function of time (s).

Figure 11: Speed (m/s) as function of time (s).

Figure 9: Left: The assembled Free fall. Right: The parts in the Free Fall.

IX. MEASUREMENTS When everything worked, the students made some measurements of the gondola position as function of time, by using a stroboscope and a still picture digital camera. From these measurements, it was possible to calculate the speed and acceleration during the fall, which are shown in Table 2.
TABLE 2: POSITION, SPEED AND ACCELERATION OF THE GONDOLA Time Position Speed Acceleration 0,00 s 2,15 m 0,00 m/s -0,00 m/s2 0,19 s 2,00 m -1,61 m/s -8,45 m/s2 0,61 s 0,57 m -5,15 m/s 38,0 m/s2 0,69 s 0,32 m -2,94 m/s 95,1 m/s2 1,04 s 0.10 m -0,24 m/s 0,00 m/s2 1,29 s 0,04 m 0,00 m/s 0,00 m/s2

Figure 12: Acceleration (m/s2) as function of time (s).

X. DEMONSTRATION In parallel with the electro project, a Ph.D. student built a three dimensional FEM-model of the downscaled Free Fall, to develop his skills with the software Flux3D. The supervisor could show the students the magnet flux, the amplitude of the flux density and eddy currents for different positions of the gondola. Some of the pictures are shown in Figure 13 16. The demonstration gives the students a new perspective of how currents and fluxes look like in a transient case like this. It also gives the students a feeling of how research and development tools are used in universities and companies for studying and developing electrical machines.

1 2 3 4 5 6

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Figure 13: The gondola, magnets, copper cylinder, and plastic cylinder in the 3D-FEM program. Figure 16: Current density on the surface of the copper cylinder with arrows showing direction and intensity.

XI. CONCLUSION The project contributed by its simplicity but yet attractively to increase the interest in electrical engineering, both theoretically and practically for the students. It also gave the student the opportunity to apply practical and theoretical knowledge and to learn more about our lab (research group). Hopefully, the interest among the students to select our courses later in their education has increased, which means that it works as good advertising. The project will be further developed by extending the visual show (demonstration) for the students of a FEM-simulation of the case.
Figure 14: The intensity of the flux density B, when the gondola is not interacting with the copper.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Thanks to Dr Peter Thelin, Tech. Lic Mats Leksell, Mr Jan Timmerman, and Mr Jan-Olov Brnnwall for valuable suggestions on the construction of the Free Fall. REFERENCES
[1] Grna Lund web site: http://www.gronalund.com/

Figure 15: The intensity of the flux density B, when the gondola is interacting with the copper.