Yeti news

[WDITrent]

^I'd say it's enough to take one out and put a new one in. They could build it and ship it before it goes down.

 

[unkadug]

^I'd say it's enough to take one out and put a new one in. They could build it and ship it before it goes down.

Yeah, if they can build a house in three days, they can certainly fix the Yeti in three months.

Extreme Makeover: WDW Edition

 

[Magenta Panther]

Such a disappointment that nobody will ever experience A mode again. I sure am glad I got to while it lasted.

At least I got to see it...on TV...

 

[Master Yoda]

Yeah, if they can build a house in three days, they can certainly fix the Yeti in three months.

Extreme Makeover: WDW Edition

Kind of apples and oranges but I do agree. One of the reasons they can build a house so fast, aside from the small army of people, is all of the planing and prefabrication that goes into it before hand. WDI has had quite a bit of time find the problem and figuring out the solution. If they were to hit it full tilt bozo with shifts working 24/7 and as much prefabrication as possible I could see it getting done in 3 months.

 

[Tom]

Kind of apples and oranges but I do agree. One of the reasons they can build a house so fast, aside from the small army of people, is all of the planing and prefabrication that goes into it before hand. WDI has had quite a bit of time find the problem and figuring out the solution. If they were to hit it full tilt bozo with shifts working 24/7 and as much prefabrication as possible I could see it getting done in 3 months.

The real difference: money.

Makeover has sponsorship. When someone else is paying, you can do anything!

Nobody is paying Disney to fix the Yeti.

 

[Master Yoda]

The real difference: money.

Makeover has sponsorship. When someone else is paying, you can do anything!

Nobody is paying Disney to fix the Yeti.

Yeah there is that too. The one I was involved in sucked up a few days of my time.

 

[flavious27]

I'm guessing, based on your post count of 18, that you haven't been following this topic for too long.

The Yeti was 100% on opening day, and for a while thereafter. The problem came when someone realized the forces exerted by the Yeti were applying more stress to the building's structure than they had designed for.

As a result, they put him into "B" mode to slow his motions down and to stop tearing apart the steel infrastructure. Eventually, they just turned him off completely while they continued the investigation and worked on a fix.

To date, we have only seen evidence of them investigating the Yeti in the last several months, when they had him completely covered with a tarp for a few days. Other than that, we can only assume one of two things.

A) They've given up completely

B) They haven't figured out how to fix it

The yeti has its own support structure, along with the ride and mountain. Just because I have a low post count, doesn't make me a noob.

As I said, they should have tested it before it was built. If it is cracking its concrete base and the steel that is holding it up, wdi should have figured that out when they were designing it. They test the stresses and other engineering aspects of their rides, why they wouldn't have for a 22 foot AA that swings its arm 5 feet?

They need to devise a solution that will get it back to an operational status. If they need to reinforce the support structure, then they need to plan it and implement it with the less amount of interference to guests. If the forces are too great, then devise a mode that has it moving while they can make the structure sound to support a lite mode a.

The ride has been running for 4 years now, this has gone on long enough.

 

[Tom]

The yeti has its own support structure, along with the ride and mountain. Just because I have a low post count, doesn't make me a noob.

As I said, they should have tested it before it was built. If it is cracking its concrete base and the steel that is holding it up, wdi should have figured that out when they were designing it. They test the stresses and other engineering aspects of their rides, why they wouldn't have for a 22 foot AA that swings its arm 5 feet?

They need to devise a solution that will get it back to an operational status. If they need to reinforce the support structure, then they need to plan it and implement it with the less amount of interference to guests. If the forces are too great, then devise a mode that has it moving while they can make the structure sound to support a lite mode a.

The ride has been running for 4 years now, this has gone on long enough.

The failure wouldn't have been discovered during "R&D" testing, unless they tested it for 2 years straight as a life-size mock-up.

This failure likely happened because of a design error. The Yeti "himself" is probably fine, except for the fact that he's terribly heavy and exerts abnormal forces.

Nothing (exactly) like this has ever been designed before. The forces exerted by the Yeti are astronomical - and there were no handbooks that told the structural engineers what size beams to use, or how large the foundation needed to be. It's apparent that even with the immense amount of over-design that I'm sure went into play, the stresses were too much.

Maybe there was a miscommunication between WDI and the structural engineers. Maybe WDI didn't give the engineers the correct load/force information. Or maybe the engineers had the correct info and didn't include enough of a safety factor.

Regardless, without real-life testing (which is impractical), this could not have been "prevented" before it opened.

It can be likened to the Apollo 13 mission. The bad parts were designed and manufactured far in advance of the assembly of the capsule, and even farther in advance of the mission. It was "assumed" by all that things had been designed and built properly, when in fact, they hadn't. To discover the failure before the mission, they would have had to simulate an actual space flight to pre-create the events that caused the failure. Not feasible.

This is merely an unforeseen failure. It's VERY difficult to retroactively repair something of this nature, especially if the failure itself lies in the steel skeleton or concrete foundation.

As a real life example, there's a building being built in my town right now where a minor deficiency was detected in the structural steel when they were pouring a concrete slab. Two steel beams deflected by 1/4" - which may not seem like much, but is outside the allowable tolerance for these specific beams (thus, by definition, a failure). The steel is in place, and the concrete slab was poured on top of it. You can't just take it all out and "fix it" because the construction is too far along and it could bankrupt parties that had nothing to do with the error. They've been working on the "fix" for 3 months already, for a 1/4" deflection - which most people would consider an unimportant issue.

We're talking about what could be an epic failure of a structural system that's buried inside a building that's actively being occupied by people. This isn't a "quick fix" by any means.

 

[flavious27]

The failure wouldn't have been discovered during "R&D" testing, unless they tested it for 2 years straight as a life-size mock-up.

This failure likely happened because of a design error. The Yeti "himself" is probably fine, except for the fact that he's terribly heavy and exerts abnormal forces.

Nothing (exactly) like this has ever been designed before. The forces exerted by the Yeti are astronomical - and there were no handbooks that told the structural engineers what size beams to use, or how large the foundation needed to be. It's apparent that even with the immense amount of over-design that I'm sure went into play, the stresses were too much.

Maybe there was a miscommunication between WDI and the structural engineers. Maybe WDI didn't give the engineers the correct load/force information. Or maybe the engineers had the correct info and didn't include enough of a safety factor.

Regardless, without real-life testing (which is impractical), this could not have been "prevented" before it opened.

It can be likened to the Apollo 13 mission. The bad parts were designed and manufactured far in advance of the assembly of the capsule, and even farther in advance of the mission. It was "assumed" by all that things had been designed and built properly, when in fact, they hadn't. To discover the failure before the mission, they would have had to simulate an actual space flight to pre-create the events that caused the failure. Not feasible.

This is merely an unforeseen failure. It's VERY difficult to retroactively repair something of this nature, especially if the failure itself lies in the steel skeleton or concrete foundation.

As a real life example, there's a building being built in my town right now where a minor deficiency was detected in the structural steel when they were pouring a concrete slab. Two steel beams deflected by 1/4" - which may not seem like much, but is outside the allowable tolerance for these specific beams (thus, by definition, a failure). The steel is in place, and the concrete slab was poured on top of it. You can't just take it all out and "fix it" because the construction is too far along and it could bankrupt parties that had nothing to do with the error. They've been working on the "fix" for 3 months already, for a 1/4" deflection - which most people would consider an unimportant issue.

We're talking about what could be an epic failure of a structural system that's buried inside a building that's actively being occupied by people. This isn't a "quick fix" by any means.

I know about how engineering disasters can happen with the building materials being used and or the designs itself. Those shows on history are fascinating, and I lived in South Jersey when the parking garage in AC fell.

It is hard from an outside view to know what happened. Everything disney does is beyond most of the bounds of what is currently out there, but it is scary that they have a ride element that is causing its support structure to fail. It could be the same problem NASA had with one group using metric and the other using imperial. Putting it in mode b is hopefully stopping any further damage, if not someone will step in to force its closure.

 

[Tom]

I know about how engineering disasters can happen with the building materials being used and or the designs itself. Those shows on history are fascinating, and I lived in South Jersey when the parking garage in AC fell.

It is hard from an outside view to know what happened. Everything disney does is beyond most of the bounds of what is currently out there, but it is scary that they have a ride element that is causing its support structure to fail. It could be the same problem NASA had with one group using metric and the other using imperial. Putting it in mode b is hopefully stopping any further damage, if not someone will step in to force its closure.

It is indeed scary.

And it definitely could be a result of something stupid like imperial vs metric. Even still, I can't even imagine the behind-the-scenes re-engineering that's been going on since they discovered the problem.

I like to give them a little more credit than most people do, regarding this issue. I know first-hand what it can be like to reverse engineer something that failed after implementation - albeit on a MUCH MUCH smaller scale.

If small things like 1/4" steel deflections can take months to "fix", a failure like the Yeti can easily take years. Add the fact that it's a major source of revenue (indirectly) and that they can only investigate it after hours, and I honestly don't think this down time is unreasonable (although it seems like it to us die-hard fans).

 

[flavious27]

It is indeed scary.

And it definitely could be a result of something stupid like imperial vs metric. Even still, I can't even imagine the behind-the-scenes re-engineering that's been going on since they discovered the problem.

I like to give them a little more credit than most people do, regarding this issue. I know first-hand what it can be like to reverse engineer something that failed after implementation - albeit on a MUCH MUCH smaller scale.

If small things like 1/4" steel deflections can take months to "fix", a failure like the Yeti can easily take years. Add the fact that it's a major source of revenue (indirectly) and that they can only investigate it after hours, and I honestly don't think this down time is unreasonable (although it seems like it to us die-hard fans).

Well if you think about what they needed to do behind the scenes to figure it and work towards a solution, then hear that it is being in mode a because some people are coming along. I would not ________ off an engineer that would make lives difficult with pranks using physics and or other scientific fields.

For a $100 million ride, the most expensive in the world, it is just a big ol' egg on disney and Rohde's faces that the yeti is not working.

 

[NoChesterHester]

I like to give them a little more credit than most people do, regarding this issue. I know first-hand what it can be like to reverse engineer something that failed after implementation - albeit on a MUCH MUCH smaller scale.

If small things like 1/4" steel deflections can take months to "fix", a failure like the Yeti can easily take years. Add the fact that it's a major source of revenue (indirectly) and that they can only investigate it after hours, and I honestly don't think this down time is unreasonable (although it seems like it to us die-hard fans).

Well said.

 

[Phonedave]

Nothing (exactly) like this has ever been designed before. The forces exerted by the Yeti are astronomical - and there were no handbooks that told the structural engineers what size beams to use, or how large the foundation needed to be. It's apparent that even with the immense amount of over-design that I'm sure went into play, the stresses were too much.

Bollocks.

Somthing like this may not have been built before, but you can most assuredly determine the forces that will be exerted. You can also then compute how the beams and concrete will react. Civil engineering is not done by trial and error.

There are handbooks that are used for common steel shapes and concrete design. They are used because it makes the design process a LOT faster (I used to be pretty good with the LRFD steel design handbook myself). However for complex shapes or ones that are not in the book, you can most assuredly calculate how the steel or concrete will react - it is just a lot of work to do so.

Either somebody somewhere did not anticipate something when designing the structure, or there was a problem with the build itself - concrete mixes can be a pain at times.

-dave

 

[Tom]

Bollocks.

Somthing like this may not have been built before, but you can most assuredly determine the forces that will be exerted. You can also then compute how the beams and concrete will react. Civil engineering is not done by trial and error.

There are handbooks that are used for common steel shapes and concrete design. They are used because it makes the design process a LOT faster (I used to be pretty good with the LRFD steel design handbook myself). However for complex shapes or ones that are not in the book, you can most assuredly calculate how the steel or concrete will react - it is just a lot of work to do so.

Either somebody somewhere did not anticipate something when designing the structure, or there was a problem with the build itself - concrete mixes can be a pain at times.

-dave

I know it's not trial and error. That's why I implied that, likely, someone gave someone else bad information. Civil's always add obscene safety factors, on top of whatever their base calculations spit out.

If this thing is failing, there was an unforeseen error in design and/or construction. Perhaps the foundation is crumbling. Perhaps the anchor bolts at the base of the structure are bending. Perhaps they discovered a hairline fracture in one of the beams, columns or diagonals. Perhaps they're seeing compression or tension marks where the tower is leaning.

Or maybe the whole system just "wiggles" when he moves. Maybe it's rubbing against an adjacent structure.

I'd be very interested to hear what the "real" problem ends up being. We'll never get it from Disney, but I'm hoping that one of our insiders hears the real scoop someday. Engineering failures are interesting to me (and not in a sick "people died" sort of way).

 

[Lee]

For a $100 million ride, the most expensive in the world...

Off topic, but FYI...
Everest is only the most expensive ride in the US.
Tower in Tokyo DisneySea nearly doubled it's cost, mostly due to having to build on that unstable, reclaimed land.
Radiator Springs Racers is going to blow them both away, cost-wise.

 

[Fable McCloud]

I hope the Radiator Springs area will do some good for DCA....I do plan someday to get to California, and would like to spend a few days at both DL and DCA, but only if it's worth it.

So far the only things I'm interested in over in DL are the Tiki Room (original ride with songs!) and the HM (different building, slightly different ride experience.)

 

[flavious27]

Off topic, but FYI...
Everest is only the most expensive ride in the US.
Tower in Tokyo DisneySea nearly doubled it's cost, mostly due to having to build on that unstable, reclaimed land.
Radiator Springs Racers is going to blow them both away, cost-wise.

The ride is listed in the 2011 book of Guinness World Records as the most expensive rollercoaster in the world. Including sets and extras, the total cost of the ride was at $100m (£51m) in 2006 after 6 years of planning & construction.

 

[Fable McCloud]

It's astonishing, yet completely unsurprising that WDW has the most expensive roller coaster in the world.

I would love to know what they plan to do to top that...

 

[Lee]

The ride is listed in the 2011 book of Guinness World Records as the most expensive rollercoaster in the world. Including sets and extras, the total cost of the ride was at $100m (£51m) in 2006 after 6 years of planning & construction.

Key word being rollercoaster.
It is easily the most expensive coaster, but not most expensive ride.
As I said, ToT in Tokyo holds that mark until RSR opens.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I know it's not a coaster, but wasn't Mission: Space more expensive than Everest?