Projectile Motion

Computer Modeling of Projectile Motion

Location of Spherical Projectile
25.0000

20.0000

Y-Pos ition (m )

15.0000

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-Pos ition (m )

Frequent User Inputs

Launch Angle (degrees)
Launch Velocity (m/s)
Diameter of Projectile (m)
Density of Projectile (kg/m^3)
Fluid (Wind) Velocity (m/s)

45
30
0.05
8000
0

Less Frequent User Inputs

Density of Fluid (Air) (kg/m^3)
Kinematic Viscosity of Fluid (Air) (m^2/s)
Acceleration of Gravity (m/s^2)
Timestep (sec)

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

1.19
1.54E-05
9.8
0.1

Projectile Motion

Plot Scaling
100
25

Delay =

0.1

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

Computed Data

Computed Variables
Rhobar
0.000149
Amass
1.000074
Bgrav
9.798542
Ccoef
0.002231

Time
(sec)
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
1.10
1.20
1.30
1.40
1.50
1.60
1.70
1.80
1.90
2.00
2.10
2.20
2.30
2.40
2.50
2.60
2.70
2.80
2.90
3.00
3.10
3.20
3.30
3.40
3.50
3.60
3.70
3.80
3.90
4.00
4.10
4.20
4.30

Computed Results
Position
Velocity
X
Y
Horizontal Vertical
(m)
(m)
(m/s)
(m/s)
0.0000
0.0000 21.2132 21.2132
2.1178
2.0689 21.1433 20.1651
4.2287
4.0332 21.0754 19.1221
6.3329
5.8935 21.0094 18.0840
8.4307
7.6502 20.9454 17.0506
10.5221
9.3037 20.8832 16.0217
12.6074 10.8546 20.8227 14.9969
14.6867 12.3032 20.7639 13.9762
16.7602 13.6500 20.7068 12.9592
18.8281 14.8952 20.6511 11.9459
20.8905 16.0393 20.5968 10.9360
22.9475 17.0825 20.5439
9.9294
24.9993 18.0253 20.4922
8.9259
27.0460 18.8678 20.4416
7.9253
29.0876 19.6104 20.3922
6.9275
31.1244 20.2534 20.3436
5.9324
33.1564 20.7970 20.2959
4.9398
35.1836 21.2414 20.2490
3.9498
37.2062 21.5870 20.2027
2.9621
39.2242 21.8339 20.1569
1.9767
41.2376 21.9824
20.1116
0.9936
43.2465 22.0327 20.0665
0.0126
45.2509 21.9850 20.0217
-0.9661
47.2509 21.8396 19.9770
-1.9426
49.2463 21.5966 19.9322
-2.9169
51.2373 21.2563 19.8874
-3.8890
53.2238 20.8188 19.8423
-4.8589
55.2058 20.2846 19.7969
-5.8264
57.1832 19.6536 19.7511
-6.7916
59.1560 18.9263 19.7048
-7.7543
61.1241 18.1029 19.6580
-8.7145
63.0875 17.1835 19.6105
-9.6720
65.0462 16.1685 19.5623 -10.6268
67.0000 15.0582 19.5133 -11.5788
68.9488 13.8529 19.4635 -12.5277
70.8926 12.5528 19.4128 -13.4736
72.8313 11.1583 19.3611 -14.4162
74.7648
9.6697 19.3085 -15.3555
76.6930
8.0873 19.2548 -16.2912
78.6158
6.4115 19.2001 -17.2233
80.5330
4.6427 19.1443 -18.1516
82.4446
2.7813 19.0874 -19.0760
84.3504
0.8277 19.0294 -19.9963
86.2504
-1.2178 18.9702 -20.9124

Page 3

Sample Data for Alternative Projectiles

Type
Beach Ball
Nerf Ball
Kickball
Ping Pong Ball
Soccer Ball
Basketball
Tennis Ball
Softball
Baseball
Water Balloon
Golf Ball
Shotput

Mass
(kg)
0.0960
0.0125
0.5630
0.0023
0.4370
0.5950
0.0560
0.1840
0.1440
0.5230
0.0460
6.8100

Diameter
(m)
0.3800
0.1050
0.2700
0.0400
0.2200
0.2400
0.0650
0.0950
0.0700
0.1000
0.0440
0.1176

Volume
(m^3)
0.0287309
0.0006061
0.0103060
0.0000335
0.0055753
0.0072382
0.0001438
0.0004489
0.0001796
0.0005236
0.0000446
0.0008514

Density
(kg/m^3)
3.341
20.623
54.628
68.636
78.382
82.202
389.448
409.872
801.807
998.856
1031.338
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 dont 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 = Velocityave rage x Time

The average velocity is given by:

Velocity average = (Velocity initial 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:

Distance = Velocityinitial x Time

Page 6

1
Acceleration x Time 2
2

Tech Details (1)

rn the flight
puter to
f visualizing

priate when
me:

):

Time 2

Page 7

Tech Details (2)

Some Technical Details (2)

In order to determine the trajectory of our idealized spherical projectile, well apply Newtons
Second Law:

F ma
that is, the force is equal to the mass times the acceleration. Well 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.)
Well resolve forces (and accelerations and velocities) into components in the x (horizontal) and y
(vertical) directions and apply Newtons 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 mea ns 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:

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:

Y Yinitial Vinitial x Time

1
g Time 2
2

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

U initial Velocityinitial 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)

y Newtons

avity here,
ntities, that
ich is the
is key.)
nd y

us the
tant and

2.2 ft/s2 in
:

metry:

that the
ngle

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 cant 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)

r
and as a
lue and
(heading
e must
s that drag
ke a shot

ully
. Only a
urveballs
is assumed
ta for the
his data.
FXoverM
wo
ntial

FxoverM,
or
e main sheet.

ectory
ertical (v)
rious

Page 11