PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Physics of falling objects
View Single Post
Old 14th Mar 2014, 08:50
  #93 (permalink)  
oggers
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Zulu Time Zone
Posts: 730
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
ANCPER

Well. A Squared, you'd be wrong
He is not wrong.

After your first response I went and paid a visit to a young lady (physics grad) who tutored my daughter in Physics a couple of years back.

S = ut + 1/2 at^

^ = squared

She said this is the valid equation up until the point the object reaches Vt, as the object is still accelerating and mass does not come into it, so in a fall where the objects fail to reach their Vt the above equation is it and they will hit the ground at the same time.
She is wrong. That is not the correct equation to use with drag - not even "up until terminal velocity". She is correct about the terminal velocity though, which is just a rearrangement (in the special case where Fnet = 0) of the equation:

Fnet = mg - (Cd x ½ρv²s)

From this equation you should be able to see that for any velocity, if the mass is higher, Fnet is higher.
oggers is offline