Physics Practical II

Projectile Motion

Aim:
To observe, understand and explain the motion of a body in a plain in the presence of gravity, and to
observe and understand the force due to the viscosity of air and its effects on moving bodies.

PART I
A. The approximate trajectory of a case was plotted to be:

This is almost like a parabola with a small amount of error in it. This error is due to the drag
force by the surrounding air on the ball. This force is proportional to the velocity of the ball and is
directed away from it, if we can neglect the spin of the ball.
To understand this graph qualitatively we make a few assumptions: -
1. The velocity in the y direction is very less compared to that of the x direction, hence the
force in y direction can be neglected.
2. The spinning of the ball can be neglected.
So, we see that the motion of this particle can be described as a normal parabolic trajectory and
along with it a small (slowly decreasing) force along the -x direction.
So, the trajectory will be something like a parabola slowly being shifted towards the left as x
increases. As shown in the figure:
 Image Credits: https://www.wired.com/2012/01/projectile-motion-primer-for-first-robotics/
B. The theoretical mathematical model says that, for a uniform sphere moving through a viscous
fluid without spinning;

= 6r Stokes Law
Where quantities written in bold are vectors.
To solve for the function x(t), we can consider Fx and vx.
= 6r
= 6r
6r
Let = .

=

Upon integration we get,
1
= (+) +

Where b and c are the constants of integration.
Thus, we have obtained the function x(t) and we may use this equation to fit the experimental
data. The result was as follows:
On fitting the curve, the values obtained for the constants a, b, and c are:
= 2.048176
= 5.807471
= 6.373775
6r
But we know that = .

Thus, we can calculate the value of viscosity of air with the values of m and r.

= 0.0055
= 0.04
Upon solving, we get;
= 0.1494 s
But the true value of viscosity of air is in the order of 10-5 Pa s. This means that we have either made an
experimental error or that there is a mistake in our assumptions.
To check the former, the experiment was repeated. This time the value of was found to be around
0.08 Pa s. Hence, we can conclude that there was no significant experimental error. This means that we
have made some wrong assumption(s).
The wrong assumption is that Stokes law is valid here. Stokes law is valid only when there is laminar
flow, whereas when Reynolds number was calculated here;

=

The value of Reynolds number was found to be in the order of 10 5.
In case of a sphere in a fluid, if the Reynolds Number is greater than 10, it is believed to be in a
turbulent state. Hence, we cannot apply Stokes law here, and we must apply the general drag
equation.
1 2
=
2
Here, A refers to the area of cross section perpendicular to the direction of motion and C D refers to a
dimensionless number called the drag coefficient which varies with the Reynolds number. At high
values of Reynolds number then the value of CD becomes constant. In such cases, it is observed that
the drag force is much higher than the value that comes through stokes law. This is the reason that
such high values of viscosities were measured.
Part II
The experiment was done and the data was obtained as follows:
Height of center Height of bottom log(height of
of ball (m) of ball (m) Range (m) bottom) log(range)
1.12 1.112 1.55 0.106160196 0.438254931
1.056 1.048 1.5 0.046883586 0.405465108
1.012 1.004 1.454 0.003992021 0.374318379
0.952 0.944 1.434 -0.057629113 0.360467742
0.872 0.864 1.372 -0.14618251 0.316269529
0.804 0.796 1.344 -0.228156093 0.295650242
0.728 0.72 1.242 -0.328504067 0.216722984
0.644 0.636 1.186 -0.452556716 0.170586301
0.608 0.6 1.146 -0.510825624 0.136277618
0.578 0.57 1.122 -0.562118918 0.115112807
0.55 0.542 1.106 -0.612489278 0.100749903
0.504 0.496 1.05 -0.701179352 0.048790164
0.442 0.434 0.968 -0.834710745 -0.032523192
0.384 0.376 0.92 -0.978166136 -0.083381609
0.322 0.314 0.832 -1.158362293 -0.183922838

Where the radius of the ball was calculated to be 0.8 cm.

log R vs log h 0.5

y = 0.4864x + 0.3866
R = 0.9977 0.4

0.3

0.2
log R

0.1

0
-1.4 -1.2 -1 -0.8 -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2
-0.1

-0.2

-0.3
log h

So, we see that

log() = 0.4864 log() +
That implies that,

0.4864
Hence the experimentally obtained value of k is 0.4864, which is equal to the theoretical value of 0.5,
under the limits of experimental error.

Part III (Your Question)

1. The turbulent nature of air at such high speeds was neglected in the first experiment and this
resulted in very different values than what was expected according to literature.
2. An extension of this experiment would be to understand how the drag force changes with
change in the speed of the ball and how the spin of the ball affects the motion of the ball.
3. An extension of the second experiment would be to analyse how range is affected by the angle
of launch at a certain height above the ground and how the relationship changes with height.

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation#Derivation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient