Laws Regaurding G-Forces On Coasters

[metalhead7]

I was wondering if there were any laws in place in different countries regulating how forceful a coaster can be. Or are they just regulated by parks? I thought of this when seeing a now defunct coaster in Asia (i cant remember which country) that pulled somewhere around 6.5 G's according to RCDB. So I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on this topic.

 

[madhjsp]

As far as I know, the ASTM amusement ride standards are the only international set of standards governing the limitations of ride design. Here is a link that talks a little bit about that:

http://www.iaapa.org/pressroom/ASTMAmusementRideSafetyStandards.asp

 

[Hyde]

The only one I know of is "For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction." :razz:

 

[Frank]

I'm fairly sure that the maximum G-force values in both the ATSM (F2291-11) and Eurocode (I'm not sure of the name for the Eurocode standard, but it seems to be slightly less strict than the British Standard BS EN 13814:2004) standards is 6G at most (parallel to the spine and for a period of a second or less). There's a number of graphs in the standards that show what you can legally do, [strike]so I'll find those once I'm back on a PC if you're interested.[/strike]

These limits are also for people upwards of 48 inches, and any coasters intended for people under that height have to be checked by an expert before they can be ok-ed.

EDIT: Here we go -

"Eyes down" are the G forces pushing you into the seat, all the other directions have lower limits, due to what your body can take.

There's a whole load more of the graphs taken straight from the ASTM standard here.

EDIT 2: To answer your original question: Yeah, the country-wise location of a ride will govern the standards it needs to conform to (so, for example, a Maurer coaster that's being built in America would need to conform to American (ASTM) standards rather than the German (DIN) standard), so the maximum permissible G-forces of the ride will have to match up with the specification laid out in the standard.