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PROJECTILE-Motion Notes

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10 views5 pages

PROJECTILE-Motion Notes

Uploaded by

asz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Projectile Motion

Projectile motion is the motion of an object thrown (projected) into the air when, after the
initial force that launches the object, air resistance is negligible and the only other force that
object experiences is the force of gravity. The object is called a projectile, and its path is
called its trajectory. Air resistance is a frictional force that slows its motion and can
significantly alter the trajectory of the motion. Due to the difficulty in calculation, only
situations in which the deviation from projectile motion is negligible and air resistance can
be ignored are considered in introductory physics. That approximation is often quite
accurate.
The most important concept in projectile motion is that when air resistance is
ignored, horizontal and vertical motions are independent, meaning that they don’t influence
one another. Compares a cannonball in free fall (in blue) to a cannonball launched
horizontally in projectile motion (in red). You can see that the cannonball in free fall falls at
the same rate as the cannonball in projectile motion. Keep in mind that if the cannon
launched the ball with any vertical component to the velocity, the vertical displacements
would not line up perfectly.
Since vertical and horizontal motions are independent, we can analyze them separately,
along perpendicular axes. To do this, we separate projectile motion into the two
components of its motion, one along the horizontal axis and the other along the vertical.

We’ll call the horizontal axis the x-axis and the vertical axis the y-axis. For notation, d is the
total displacement, and x and y are its components along the horizontal and vertical axes.
The magnitudes of these vectors are x and y, as illustrated in the figure below.
As usual, we use velocity, acceleration, and displacement to describe motion. We must also
find the components of these variables along the x- and y-axes. The components of
acceleration are then very simple ay = –g = –9.80 m/s2. Note that this definition defines the
upwards direction as positive. Because gravity is vertical, ax = 0. Both accelerations are
constant, so we can use the kinematic equations.

Where x is position, x0 is initial position, v is velocity, vavg is average velocity, t is time


and a is acceleration.

The following steps are used to analyze projectile motion:


1. Separate the motion into horizontal and vertical components along the x- and y-axes.
These axes are perpendicular, so Ax=Acosθ and Ay=Asinθ are used. The magnitudes
of the displacement ss along x- and y-axes are called x and y. The magnitudes of the
components of the velocity v are vx=vcosθ and vy=vsinθ, where v is the magnitude of
the velocity and θ is its direction. Initial values are denoted with a subscript 0.
2. Treat the motion as two independent one-dimensional motions, one horizontal and
the other vertical. The kinematic equations for horizontal and vertical motion take the
following forms

3. Solve for the unknowns in the two separate motions (one horizontal and one vertical).
Note that the only common variable between the motions is time tt . The problem
solving procedures here are the same as for one-dimensional kinematics.

4.
SAMPLE PROBLEM

During a fireworks display like the one illustrated below; a shell is shot into the air with an initial
speed of 70.0 m/s at an angle of 75° above the horizontal. The fuse is timed to ignite the shell just as
it reaches its highest point above the ground. (a) Calculate the height at which the shell explodes. (b)
How much time passed between the launch of the shell and the explosion? (c) What is the horizontal
displacement of the shell when it explodes?
Since up is positive, the initial velocity and maximum height are positive, but the acceleration due to
gravity is negative. The maximum height depends only on the vertical component of the initial
velocity. The numbers in this example are reasonable for large fireworks displays, the shells of which
do reach such heights before exploding.
This equation defines the maximum height of a projectile. The maximum height depends only on
the vertical component of the initial velocity.

PRACTICE
Suppose a large rock is ejected from a volcano, as illustrated below, with a speed
of 25.0 m/s25.0 m/s and at an angle 35°35° above the horizontal. The rock strikes the side of
the volcano at an altitude 20.0 m lower than its starting point. (a) Calculate the time it takes
the rock to follow this path.

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Prepared by:

GRACE V. PEREZ
General Physics I Teacher

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