Minimum and terminal velocities in projectile motion
General Physics
2012-10-01 v1
Abstract
The motion of a projectile with horizontal initial velocity V0, moving under the action of the gravitational field and a drag force is studied analytically. As it is well known, the projectile reaches a terminal velocity Vterm. There is a curious result concerning the minimum speed Vmin; it turns out that the minimum velocity is lower than the terminal one if V0 > Vterm and is lower than the initial one if V0 < Vterm. These results show that the velocity is not a monotonous function. If the initial speed is not horizontal, there is an angle range where the velocity shows the same behavior mentioned previously. Out of that range, the volocity is a monotonous function. These results come out from numerical simulations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1209.6608,
title = {Minimum and terminal velocities in projectile motion},
author = {E. N. Miranda and S. Nikolskaya and R. Riba},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.6608},
year = {2012}
}