• An attraction at an amusement park that allows passengers to feel as though they are free falling is called a drop tower. The majority of drop towers involve lifting a gondola full of riders to the summit and then released to free-fall down the tower. As the gondola gets closer to the base of the tower, magnetic brakes instantly slow it down. You are designing a gondola that can hoist 3000 kg of load, including the weight of the gondola itself, and a drop tower that will be 75 meters high.
• a) Let's say you want to raise the gondola with a basic DC motor. If the gondola needs to be raised in 20 seconds and the motor is attached to a 2-kV power source, figure out how much current needs to be given to it ?
• b) The gondola will only free fall for 3.2 seconds before the magnetic brake engages for safety reasons. Examine the magnetic brake's current requirement to ensure that the gondola stops precisely at ground level. Let's say a permanent magnet with a strength of 600 T and a size of 1.7 m is employed as the brake and the magnetic brake operates according to Lorentz's force.