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Unread 10-01-2006, 22:34
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Re: How will FIRST measure muzzle velocity?

Quote:
Originally Posted by KenWittlief
wow! did you use a differential equation for the air resistance in the spread sheet? I'm lucky if I can set up Excel to sum a column of numbers and get the right results!

Like most things in the real world projectile motion in air is nonlinear. Even with differential equations the best we can do is approximate it.
Yeah, yeah. It's a terribly grungy approximation. I'm assuming it errs on the short side. It seems like the coefficient of drag could be rather low while the ball was at 12 m/s. At any rate, I don't have enough info on the ball's roughness to figure out what weird curve relating Reynold's Number to Cd I should be using. And I was just too lazy to pull out my numerical analysis book and use something better than a first order approximation.
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