Projectile Motion

Computer Modeling of Projectile Motion

Location of Spherical Projectile

25.0000

20.0000

15.0000
Y-Position (m)

10.0000

5.0000

0.0000
0.0000 10.0000 20.0000 30.0000 40.0000 50.0000 60.0000 70.0000 80.0000 90.0000 100.0000

-5.0000

X-Position (m)

Frequent User Inputs

Launch Angle (degrees) 45
Launch Velocity (m/s) 30
Diameter of Projectile (m) 0.05
Density of Projectile (kg/m^3) 8000
Fluid (Wind) Velocity (m/s) 0

Less Frequent User Inputs

Density of Fluid (Air) (kg/m^3) 1.19
Kinematic Viscosity of Fluid (Air) (m^2/s) 1.54E-05
Acceleration of Gravity (m/s^2) 9.8
Timestep (sec) 0.1

Prepared by G.W. O'Leary and R.J. Ribando

 Projectile Motion

Plot Scaling

100

25

Delay = 0.1

Prepared by G.W. O'Leary and R.J. Ribando

 Computed Data

Computed Variables Computed Results

Rhobar 0.000149 Time Position Velocity
Amass 1.000074 X Y Horizontal Vertical
Bgrav 9.798542 (sec) (m) (m) (m/s) (m/s)
Ccoef 0.002231 0.00 0.0000 0.0000 21.2132 21.2132
0.10 2.1178 2.0689 21.1433 20.1651
0.20 4.2287 4.0332 21.0754 19.1221
0.30 6.3329 5.8935 21.0094 18.0840
0.40 8.4307 7.6502 20.9454 17.0506
0.50 10.5221 9.3037 20.8832 16.0217
0.60 12.6074 10.8546 20.8227 14.9969
0.70 14.6867 12.3032 20.7639 13.9762
0.80 16.7602 13.6500 20.7068 12.9592
0.90 18.8281 14.8952 20.6511 11.9459
1.00 20.8905 16.0393 20.5968 10.9360
1.10 22.9475 17.0825 20.5439 9.9294
1.20 24.9993 18.0253 20.4922 8.9259
1.30 27.0460 18.8678 20.4416 7.9253
1.40 29.0876 19.6104 20.3922 6.9275
1.50 31.1244 20.2534 20.3436 5.9324
1.60 33.1564 20.7970 20.2959 4.9398
1.70 35.1836 21.2414 20.2490 3.9498
1.80 37.2062 21.5870 20.2027 2.9621
1.90 39.2242 21.8339 20.1569 1.9767
2.00 41.2376 21.9824 20.1116 0.9936
2.10 43.2465 22.0327 20.0665 0.0126
2.20 45.2509 21.9850 20.0217 -0.9661
2.30 47.2509 21.8396 19.9770 -1.9426
2.40 49.2463 21.5966 19.9322 -2.9169
2.50 51.2373 21.2563 19.8874 -3.8890
2.60 53.2238 20.8188 19.8423 -4.8589
2.70 55.2058 20.2846 19.7969 -5.8264
2.80 57.1832 19.6536 19.7511 -6.7916
2.90 59.1560 18.9263 19.7048 -7.7543
3.00 61.1241 18.1029 19.6580 -8.7145
3.10 63.0875 17.1835 19.6105 -9.6720
3.20 65.0462 16.1685 19.5623 -10.6268
3.30 67.0000 15.0582 19.5133 -11.5788
3.40 68.9488 13.8529 19.4635 -12.5277
3.50 70.8926 12.5528 19.4128 -13.4736
3.60 72.8313 11.1583 19.3611 -14.4162
3.70 74.7648 9.6697 19.3085 -15.3555
3.80 76.6930 8.0873 19.2548 -16.2912
3.90 78.6158 6.4115 19.2001 -17.2233
4.00 80.5330 4.6427 19.1443 -18.1516
4.10 82.4446 2.7813 19.0874 -19.0760
4.20 84.3504 0.8277 19.0294 -19.9963
4.30 86.2504 -1.2178 18.9702 -20.9124

Page 3
 Sample Data for Alternative Projectiles

Type Mass Diameter Volume Density

(kg) (m) (m^3) (kg/m^3)
Beach Ball 0.0960 0.3800 0.0287309 3.341
Nerf Ball 0.0125 0.1050 0.0006061 20.623
Kickball 0.5630 0.2700 0.0103060 54.628
Ping Pong Ball 0.0023 0.0400 0.0000335 68.636
Soccer Ball 0.4370 0.2200 0.0055753 78.382
Basketball 0.5950 0.2400 0.0072382 82.202
Tennis Ball 0.0560 0.0650 0.0001438 389.448
Softball 0.1840 0.0950 0.0004489 409.872
Baseball 0.1440 0.0700 0.0001796 801.807
Water Balloon 0.5230 0.1000 0.0005236 998.856
Golf Ball 0.0460 0.0440 0.0000446 1031.338
Shotput 6.8100 0.1176 0.0008514 7999.030

All diameters and masses are approximate.

Most of these are not exactly smooth spheres, and some are deformable.
 Disclaimer

This collection of worksheets was developed for the

Session on Projectile Motion and Computer Modeling,
presented at the 1997 Summer Institute of the
Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering, Inc.
held at the University of Virginia June 15 - June 26, 1997.

It is based on Program 1.4 in An Introduction to Computational

Fluid Dynamics by Chuen-Yen Chow, Wiley (1979)

R.J.Ribando, 310 MEC, Univ. of Virginia, June 1997

Copyright 1997, All rights reserved.

This program may be distributed freely for instructional purposes

only providing that:
(1) The file be distributed in its entirety including disclaimer
and copyright notices.
(2) No part of it may be incorporated into any commercial product.

DISCLAIMER
The author shall not be responsible for losses of any kind
resulting from the use of the program or of any documentation
and can in no way provide compensation for any losses sustained
including but not limited to any obligation, liability, right,
or remedy for tort nor any business expense, machine downtime
or damages caused to the user by any deficiency, defect or
error in the program or in any such documentation or any
malfunction of the program or for any incidental or consequential
losses, damages or costs, however caused.

Page 5
 Tech Details (1)

Some Technical Details (1)

If we are willing to ignore the effect of drag on the projectile, the equations that govern the flight
of a simple, spherical projectile simplify greatly - to the point thaqt we don’t even need a computer to
solve them. But a computer or even a graphing calculator does provide a convenient means of visualizing
the solution.

For those cases involving uniform acceleration (which it will be shown later is appropriate when
air drag is neglected), the distance traveled is simply the average velocity times the elapsed time:

Distance = Velocityaverage x Time

The average velocity is given by:

Velocity average = (Velocityinitial  Velocity final ) / 2

The acceleration is the change in velocity over the elapsed time (and is assumed uniform here):

Acceleration = (Velocity final  Velocity initial ) / Time

Solve this for the final velocity:

Velocityfinal  Velocityinitial  Acceleration x Time

Combining the first, second and fourth equations:

1
Distance = Velocity initial x Time  Acceleration x Time 2
2

Page 6
 Tech Details (1)

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Time 2

Page 7
 Tech Details (2)

Some Technical Details (2)

In order to determine the trajectory of our idealized spherical projectile, we’ll apply Newton’s
Second Law:

F ma

that is, the force is equal to the mass times the acceleration. We’ll include the force due to gravity here,
that is, the weight, but will ignore air drag for now. Forces and velocities are both vector quantities, that
is, they have both magn itude and direction. (The state trooper is interested in your speed, which is the
magnitude of your velocity, but if you are trying to get somewhere in particular, your velocity is key.)
We’ll resolve forces (and accelerations and velocities) into components in the x (horizontal) and y
(vertical) directions and apply Newton’s 2 nd law separately to each.

Since we have ignored air drag, there are no forces in the x (horizontal direction), thus the
horizontal acceleration is identically 0.0. That means the horizontal velocity (U) will be constant and
equal to the initial value Uinitial . The horizontal position is then given by:

X  X initial  U initial x Time

In the y (vertical) direction, we consider only the force due to gravity:

F y  ma y   mg ,

that is, the acceleration in the vertical direction is equal to -g (9.8 m/s 2 in the metric system, 32.2 ft/s2 in
the English system. With this uniform acceleration, the vertical velocity (V) is then given by:
V  Vinitial  g x Time
.

Finally the vertical position is given by:

1
Y  Yinitial  Vinitial x Time  g Time 2
2

The initial velocity components specified in these equations can be found from simple trigonometry:

U initial  Velocity initial x Cosine(Angle initial )

Vinitial  Velocity initial x Sine(Angle initial )

The equations for X and Y are easily input to a graphing calculator in this parametric form so that the
trajectory can be visualized as a function of time, launch velocity (Velocityinitial ) and launch angle
(Angle initial ).

Page 8
 Tech Details (2)

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Page 9
 Tech Details (3)

Some Technical Details (3)

The model of projectile motion developed on the previous sheet, while convenient for
implementation on a graphing calculator, has some obvious problems. Air drag was ignored and as a
consequence, we found that contrary to intuition, the horizontal velocity stays at its initial value and
never decreases. Furthermore, the vertical velocity just keeps getting more and more negative (heading
downward) with time; that is, it never reaches a terminal velocity. To rectify this problem we must
include the force due to the drag of the air on the spherical projectile. Our experience tells us that drag
will be more important for a light sphere, e.g., a beach ball, and less so for heavy projectiles like a shot
put.

The air drag model and the solution algorithm implemented in this spreadsheet are fully
explained in An Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics by C.Y. Chow, (Wiley, 1979). Only a
few highlights are presented here. First of all, this is a 2-D model only - no hooks, slices or curveballs
allowed. The drag force depends on the velocity of the projectile relative to the wind, which is assumed
to have only a horizontal component and acts opposite to the relative wind. Experimental data for the
drag coefficient of a smooth sphere are used. This function Cdrag implements curve fits for this data.
The accelerations in the x and y directions at each point in time are computed in the functions FXoverM
and FYoverM, respectively. Unfortunately with the extra terms involving the air drag, the two
governing equations can’t be solved directly (they are a set of two non-linear, ordinary differential
equations). So we use a numerical technique called Runge-Kutta integration which has been
implemented in the subroutine Kutta. All the heavy-duty calculations (the functions Cdrag, FxoverM,
FyoverM and the subroutine Kutta) were all implemented behind-the-scenes in Visual Basic for
Applications and are automatically invoked when the user hits the Compute/Plot button on the main sheet.

In addition to the main sheet, which includes boxes for user input and shows the trajectory
graph ically, another sheet reports the computed x and y positions and the horizontal (u) and vertical (v)
velocity components as a function of time. Another sheet gives some approximate data for various
common spherical projectiles which the user may want to test.

Page 10
 Tech Details (3)

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Page 11