Projectile motion

Projectile motion is a form of motion experienced by an object or particle (a projectile) that is

projected in a gravitational field, such as from Earth's surface, and moves along a curved path (a
trajectory) under the action of gravity only. In the particular case of projectile motion on Earth, most
calculations assume the effects of air resistance are passive.

Parabolic trajectories of water jets

Components of initial velocity of parabolic

throwing
 Ballistic trajectories are parabolic if gravity
is homogeneous and elliptic if it is radial.

Galileo Galilei showed that the trajectory of a given projectile is parabolic, but the path may also be
straight in the special case when the object is thrown directly upward or downward. The study of
such motions is called ballistics, and such a trajectory is described as ballistic. The only force of
mathematical significance that is actively exerted on the object is gravity, which acts downward,
thus imparting to the object a downward acceleration towards Earth's center of mass. Due to the
object's inertia, no external force is needed to maintain the horizontal velocity component of the
object's motion.

Taking other forces into account, such as aerodynamic drag or internal propulsion (such as in a
rocket), requires additional analysis. A ballistic missile is a missile only guided during the relatively
brief initial powered phase of flight, and whose remaining course is governed by the laws of
classical mechanics.

Ballistics (from Ancient Greek βάλλειν bállein 'to throw') is the science of dynamics that deals with
the flight, behavior and effects of projectiles, especially bullets, unguided bombs, rockets, or the like;
the science or art of designing and accelerating projectiles so as to achieve a desired performance.
 Trajectories of a projectile with air drag and varying
initial velocities

The elementary equations of ballistics neglect nearly every factor except for initial velocity, the
launch angle and an gravitational acceleration assumed constant. Practical solutions of a ballistics
problem often require considerations of air resistance, cross winds, target motion, acceleration due
to gravity varying with height, and in such problems as launching a rocket from one point on the
Earth to another, the horizon's distance vs curvature of the Earth (its local speed of rotation).
Detailed mathematical solutions of practical problems typically do not have closed-form solutions,
and therefore require numerical methods to address.

Kinematic quantities

In projectile motion, the horizontal motion and the vertical motion are independent of each other;
that is, neither motion affects the other. This is the principle of compound motion established by
Galileo in 1638,[1] and used by him to prove the parabolic form of projectile motion.[2]

The horizontal and vertical

components of a projectile's velocity
are independent of each other.
A ballistic trajectory is a parabola with homogeneous acceleration, such as in a space ship with
constant acceleration in absence of other forces. On Earth the acceleration changes magnitude with
altitude as and direction (faraway targets) with latitude/longitude along
the trajectory. This causes an elliptic trajectory, which is very close to a parabola on a small scale.
However, if an object was thrown and the Earth was suddenly replaced with a black hole of equal
mass, it would become obvious that the ballistic trajectory is part of an elliptic orbit around that
black hole, and not a parabola that extends to infinity. At higher speeds the trajectory can also be
circular, parabolic or hyperbolic (unless distorted by other objects like the Moon or the Sun).

In this article a homogeneous gravitational acceleration is assumed.

Acceleration

Since there is acceleration only in the vertical direction, the velocity in the horizontal direction is
constant, being equal to . The vertical motion of the projectile is the motion of a particle
during its free fall. Here the acceleration is constant, being equal to g.[note 1] The components of the
acceleration are:

,
.*

*The y acceleration can also be referred to as the force of the earth on the object(s) of
interest.

Velocity

Let the projectile be launched with an initial velocity , which can be expressed as the
sum of horizontal and vertical components as follows:

The components and can be found if the initial launch angle, , is known:

The horizontal component of the velocity of the object remains unchanged throughout the motion.
The vertical component of the velocity changes linearly,[note 2] because the acceleration due to
gravity is constant. The accelerations in the x and y directions can be integrated to solve for the
components of velocity at any time t, as follows:
 ,
.

The magnitude of the velocity (under the Pythagorean theorem, also known as the triangle law):

Displacement

Displacement and coordinates of parabolic

throwing

At any time , the projectile's horizontal and vertical displacement are:

The magnitude of the displacement is:

Consider the equations,

and .[3]

If t is eliminated between these two equations the following equation is obtained:

Here R is the range of a projectile.

Since g, θ, and v0 are constants, the above equation is of the form

,
in which a and b are constants. This is the equation of a parabola, so the path is parabolic. The axis
of the parabola is vertical.

If the projectile's position (x,y) and launch angle (θ or α) are known, the initial velocity can be found
solving for v0 in the afore-mentioned parabolic equation:

Displacement in polar coordinates

The parabolic trajectory of a projectile can also be expressed in polar coordinates instead of
Cartesian coordinates. In this case, the position has the general formula

In this equation, the origin is the midpoint of the horizontal range of the projectile, and if the ground
is flat, the parabolic arc is plotted in the range . This expression can be obtained by
transforming the Cartesian equation as stated above by and .

Properties of the trajectory

Time of flight or total time of the whole journey

The total time t for which the projectile remains in the air is called the time of flight.

After the flight, the projectile returns to the horizontal axis (x-axis), so .

Note that we have neglected air resistance on the projectile.

If the starting point is at height y0 with respect to the point of impact, the time of flight is:

As above, this expression can be reduced to

if θ is 45° and y0 is 0.

Time of flight to the target's position

As shown above in the Displacement section, the horizontal and vertical velocity of a projectile are
independent of each other.

Because of this, we can find the time to reach a target using the displacement formula for the
horizontal velocity:

This equation will give the total time t the projectile must travel for to reach the target's horizontal
displacement, neglecting air resistance.

Maximum height of projectile

Maximum height of projectile

The greatest height that the object will reach is known as the peak of the object's motion. The
increase in height will last until , that is,

Time to reach the maximum height(h):

For the vertical displacement of the maximum height of the projectile:

The maximum reachable height is obtained for θ=90°:

If the projectile's position (x,y) and launch angle (θ) are known, the maximum height can be found by
solving for h in the following equation:

Angle of elevation (φ) at the maximum height is given by:

Relation between horizontal range and maximum height

The relation between the range d on the horizontal plane and the maximum height h reached at

is:

Proof [show]
Maximum distance of projectile

The maximum distance of projectile

The range and the maximum height of the projectile do not depend upon its mass. Hence range and
maximum height are equal for all bodies that are thrown with the same velocity and direction. The
horizontal range d of the projectile is the horizontal distance it has traveled when it returns to its
initial height ( ).

Time to reach ground:

From the horizontal displacement the maximum distance of projectile:

so[note 3]

Note that d has its maximum value when

which necessarily corresponds to

or

.
 Trajectories of projectiles launched at different elevation
angles but the same speed of 10 m/s in a vacuum and
uniform downward gravity field of 10 m/s2. Points are at
0.05 s intervals and length of their tails is linearly
proportional to their speed. t = time from launch, T = time of
flight, R = range and H = highest point of trajectory (indicated
with arrows).

The total horizontal distance (d) traveled.

When the surface is flat (initial height of the object is zero), the distance traveled:[4]

Thus the maximum distance is obtained if θ is 45 degrees. This distance is:

Application of the work energy theorem

According to the work-energy theorem the vertical component of velocity is:

These formulae ignore aerodynamic drag and also assume that the landing area is at uniform height
0.

Angle of reach

The "angle of reach" is the angle (θ) at which a projectile must be launched in order to go a distance
d, given the initial velocity v.
There are two solutions:

(shallow trajectory)

and because ,

(steep trajectory)

Angle θ required to hit coordinate (x, y)

Vacuum trajectory of a projectile for different launch

angles. Launch speed is the same for all angles, 50 m/s,
and "g" is 10 m/s2.

To hit a target at range x and altitude y when fired from (0,0) and with initial speed v the required
angle(s) of launch θ are:

The two roots of the equation correspond to the two possible launch angles, so long as they aren't
imaginary, in which case the initial speed is not great enough to reach the point (x,y) selected. This
formula allows one to find the angle of launch needed without the restriction of .

One can also ask what launch angle allows the lowest possible launch velocity. This occurs when
the two solutions above are equal, implying that the quantity under the square root sign is zero. This
requires solving a quadratic equation for , and we find
This gives

If we denote the angle whose tangent is y/x by α, then

This implies

In other words, the launch should be at the angle halfway between the target and zenith (vector
opposite to gravity).

Total Path Length of the Trajectory

The length of the parabolic arc traced by a projectile, L, given that the height of launch and landing is
the same (there is no air resistance), is given by the formula:

where is the initial velocity, is the launch angle and is the acceleration due to gravity as a
positive value. The expression can be obtained by evaluating the arc length integral for the height-
distance parabola between the bounds initial and final displacement (i.e. between 0 and the
horizontal range of the projectile) such that:

If the time of flight is t,

Trajectory of a projectile with air resistance

Trajectories of a mass thrown at an angle of 70°:

without drag (a parabole)
with Stokes' drag
with Newtonian drag

Air resistance creates a force that (for symmetric projectiles) is always directed against the
direction of motion in the surrounding medium and has a magnitude that depends on the absolute
speed: . The speed-dependence of the friction force is linear ( ) at very
low speeds (Stokes drag) and quadratic ( ) at large speeds (Newton drag).[5] The
transition between these behaviours is determined by the Reynolds number, which depends on
speed, object size, density and dynamic viscosity of the medium. For Reynolds numbers below
about 1 the dependence is linear, above 1000 (turbulent flow) it becomes quadratic. In air, which has
a kinematic viscosity around , this means that the drag force becomes quadratic in
v when the product of speed and diameter is more than about , which is typically the
case for projectiles.

Stokes drag: (for )

Newton drag: (for )

 Free body diagram of a body on which only gravity and
air resistance act.

The free body diagram on the right is for a projectile that experiences air resistance and the effects
of gravity. Here, air resistance is assumed to be in the direction opposite of the projectile's velocity:

Trajectory of a projectile with Stokes drag

Stokes drag, where , only applies at very low speed in air, and is thus not the typical case
for projectiles. However, the linear dependence of on causes a very simple differential
equation of motion

in which the 2 cartesian components become completely independent, and it is thus easier to
solve.[6] Here, , and will be used to denote the initial velocity, the velocity along the direction
of x and the velocity along the direction of y, respectively. The mass of the projectile will be denoted
by m, and . For the derivation only the case where is considered. Again,
the projectile is fired from the origin (0,0).

Derivation of horizontal position [show]

 (1b)

Derivation of vertical position [show]

(3b)

Derivation of the time of flight [show]

Trajectory of a projectile with Newton drag

Trajectories of a skydiver in air with

Newton drag

The most typical case of air resistance, in case of Reynolds numbers above about 1000, is Newton
drag with a drag force proportional to the speed squared, . In air, which has a
kinematic viscosity around , this means that the product of speed and diameter must
be more than about .

Unfortunately, the equations of motion can not be easily solved analytically for this case. Therefore,
a numerical solution will be examined.

The following assumptions are made:

Constant gravitational acceleration

Air resistance is given by the following drag formula,

 Where:

FD is the drag force

c is the drag coefficient

ρ is the air density

A is the cross sectional area of the projectile Again

Compare this with theory/practice of the ballistic coefficient.

Special cases

Even though the general case of a projectile with Newton drag cannot be solved analytically, some

special cases can. Here we denote the terminal velocity in free-fall as and the

characteristic settling time constant . (Dimension of [m/s2], [1/m])

Near-horizontal motion: In case the motion is almost horizontal, , such as a flying

bullet, the vertical velocity component has very little influence on the horizontal motion. In this
case:[8]

The same pattern applies for motion with friction along a line in any direction, when gravity is
negligible (relatively small ). It also applies when vertical motion is prevented, such as for a
moving car with its engine off.

Vertical motion upward:[8]

Here
 and

where is the initial upward velocity at and the initial position is .

A projectile cannot rise longer than in the vertical direction before it reaches the

peak.

Vertical motion downward:[8]

After a time , the projectile reaches almost terminal velocity .

Numerical solution

A projectile motion with drag can be computed generically by numerical integration of the ordinary
differential equation, for instance by applying a reduction to a first-order system. The equation to be
solved is

This approach also allows to add the effects of speed-dependent drag coefficient, altitude-
dependent air density (in product ) and position-dependent gravity field (
).
Lofted trajectory

Lofted trajectories of North Korean

ballistic missiles Hwasong-14,
Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17

A special case of a ballistic trajectory for a rocket is a lofted trajectory, a trajectory with an apogee
greater than the minimum-energy trajectory to the same range. In other words, the rocket travels
higher and by doing so it uses more energy to get to the same landing point. This may be done for
various reasons such as increasing distance to the horizon to give greater viewing/communication
range or for changing the angle with which a missile will impact on landing. Lofted trajectories are
sometimes used in both missile rocketry and in spaceflight.[9]
Projectile motion on a planetary scale

Projectile trajectory around a planet,

compared to the motion in a uniform
field

When a projectile travels a range that is significant compared to the Earth's radius (above ≈100 km),
the curvature of the Earth and the non-uniform Earth's gravity have to be considered. This is, for
example, the case with spacecrafts and intercontinental missiles. The trajectory then generalizes
(without air resistance) from a parabola to a Kepler-ellipse with one focus at the center of the Earth.
The projectile motion then follows Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

The trajectories' parameters have to be adapted from the values of a uniform gravity field stated
above. The Earth radius is taken as R, and g as the standard surface gravity. Let be
the launch velocity relative to the first cosmic velocity.

Total range d between launch and impact:

Maximum range of a projectile for optimum launch angle ( ):

with , the first cosmic velocity

Maximum height of a projectile above the planetary surface:

Maximum height of a projectile for vertical launch ( ):

with , the second cosmic velocity

Time of flight:
See also

Equations of motion

Phugoid

Notes

1. g is the acceleration due to gravity. ( near the surface of the Earth).

2. decreasing when the object goes upward, and increasing when it goes downward

3.

References

1. Galileo Galilei, Two New Sciences, Leiden, 1638, p.249

2. Nolte, David D., Galileo Unbound (Oxford University Press, 2018) pp. 39-63.

3. Stewart, James; Clegg, Dan; Watson, Saleem (2021). Calculus: Early Transcendentals
(Ninth ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage. p. 919. ISBN 978-1-337-61392-7.

4. Tatum (2019). Classical Mechanics (http://orca.phys.uvic.ca/~tatum/classmechs/class7.pd

f) (PDF). pp. ch. 7.

5. Stephen T. Thornton; Jerry B. Marion (2007). Classical Dynamics of Particles and Systems (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=30rWGAAACAAJ) . Brooks/Cole. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-495-
55610-7.

6. Atam P. Arya; Atam Parkash Arya (September 1997). Introduction to Classical Mechanics (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=LxWMAAAACAAJ) . Prentice Hall Internat. p. 227. ISBN 978-
0-13-906686-3.

7. Rginald Cristian, Bernardo; Jose Perico, Esguerra; Jazmine Day, Vallejos; Jeff Jerard, Canda
(2015). "Wind-influenced projectile motion". European Journal of Physics. 36 (2): 025016.
Bibcode:2015EJPh...36b5016B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EJPh...36b5016B) .
doi:10.1088/0143-0807/36/2/025016 (https://doi.org/10.1088%2F0143-0807%2F36%2F2%2F
025016) . S2CID 119601402 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:119601402) .
 8. Walter Greiner (2004). Classical Mechanics: Point Particles and Relativity (https://books.google.
com/books?id=W7Rwdc6JMb8C) . Springer Science & Business Media. p. 181. ISBN 0-387-
95586-0.

9. Ballistic Missile Defense, Glossary, v. 3.0 (https://definedterm.com/a/document/10803) , US

Department of Defense, June 1997.
[1]

1. Moebs, William; Ling, Samuel J.; Sanny, Jeff (2016-09-19). "6.4 Drag Force and Terminal Speed
- University Physics Volume 1 | OpenStax" (https://openstax.org/books/university-physics-volu
me-1/pages/6-4-drag-force-and-terminal-speed) . openstax.org. Retrieved 2024-05-28.