Articulated Watercraft Chassis with Locking Coupling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing water-ride facilities face challenges in providing a naturalistic floating experience for watercraft, especially in schuss sections with varying loads and water levels, due to the need for secure guidance while maintaining realistic boat-like movements, which is costly and prone to collisions with channel walls.
Innovation Solution
A watercraft connected to an undercarriage via a flexible or articulated connecting unit with coupling elements that allow relative movements and secure locking, enabling naturalistic floating motions while ensuring safety through controlled coupling and uncoupling mechanisms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the watercraft is firmly attached to the undercarriage across the entire water area, then safety is improved, but the floating motion becomes unrealistic
Solution Approach 1:
The water channel is divided into distinct sections: a schuss section where the watercraft is firmly attached to the undercarriage for safety, and a free-floating section where the watercraft can move naturally. This segmentation allows different attachment states in different spatial zones to satisfy both safety and realism requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The connection between the watercraft and undercarriage is made dynamic rather than static. The watercraft can transition between attached and detached states, allowing the system to adapt its degree of constraint based on the operational phase, thus achieving both safety during high-force sections and naturalistic motion during low-force sections.
2Ease of operation
If the watercraft is left unguided in the free-floating area, then floating realism is improved, but collisions with channel walls occur
Solution Approach 1:
The undercarriage acts as an intermediary element that provides guidance without completely constraining the watercraft. It offers subtle directional guidance to prevent wall collisions while allowing natural floating motions, serving as a mediator between complete freedom and complete constraint.
3Reliability
If the undercarriage is threaded into the guide mechanism after the schuss section, then safety is improved, but the operation complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The watercraft is pre-attached to the undercarriage before entering the schuss section, so that the attachment is already in place when needed for safety. This eliminates the need for complex real-time attachment mechanisms during high-force sections, simplifying the overall system.
4Ease of operation
If the undercarriage is unthreaded after the schuss section, then floating realism is improved, but safety risks increase due to unstable watercraft
Solution Approach 1:
The connection state is made dynamic, allowing the watercraft to remain attached during the schuss section for safety and then transition to a detached state after stabilization in the free-floating section. This dynamic adaptation ensures safety when needed and realism when appropriate.
Data Source
AI summary
A water ride containing at least one watercraft is described, having at least a floating body and a chassis which is connected thereto in an articulated manner and which serves as a guide unit, and a guide for the chassis which runs in the water, and a drive for the watercraft, wherein the floating body is connected to the chassis via a connection unit which comprises flexible elements and which allows relative movements of the floating body with respect to the chassis, wherein arranged on the floating body and on the chassis are associated coupling elements which serve for rigidly connecting the floating body and the chassis in at least one relative position, and in that the coupling elements are designed in such a way that the floating body is fixed on the chassis after being lowered.