Scribd
Upload
4 views2 pages

Bouncing Ball Simulation

The document explains the simulation of a bouncing ball, detailing the two stages of motion: free fall under gravity and contact with the floor. It provides kinematic equations for modeling the ball's motion and introduces the coefficient of restitution to account for energy loss during bounces. An exercise is included to model different initial conditions and observe the effects of varying parameters on the ball's behavior.

Uploaded by

fredobaga53
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
4 views2 pages

Bouncing Ball Simulation

The document explains the simulation of a bouncing ball, detailing the two stages of motion: free fall under gravity and contact with the floor. It provides kinematic equations for modeling the ball's motion and introduces the coefficient of restitution to account for energy loss during bounces. An exercise is included to model different initial conditions and observe the effects of varying parameters on the ball's behavior.

Uploaded by

fredobaga53
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

BOUNCING BALL SIMULATION

Consider a ball released from rest above a floor. Explain what happens?
Answer: The ball will bounce off the floor until it comes to rest.

During this motion, there are two distinct stages;


▪ The ball is moving freely under gravity.
▪ The ball is in contact with the floor.
The equations governing the motion of the ball in these two stages are quite different. The times
at which the ball comes in contact with the floor and leaves the floor are clearly discontinuity
points. It is not known when the discontinuities occur. The integrator in modeling software will
detect the discontinuities.
How to Model:
1. Velocity integrator
2. Position integrator.
Running a simulation for 4 seconds with a print interval of 0.05s will yield the following plot.

Figure 1: Ball displacement


Mathematical Modeling.
For motion with constant acceleration, kinematic equations used;
1
y = vot − gt 2 …………….. (1)
2

v = vo − gt ….………… (2)

Where;
y = is the vertical position of the ball at time t
vo= is the initial velocity of the ball
g = acceleration due to gravity
t = is the time elapsed since the start of the simulation

For the ball bouncing off the surface, the restitution equation applied is as shown in equation 3.
Since the ball loses energy on each bounce (zeno behavior) a coefficient of restitution denoted by
letter k is used.
Such problems are many in engineering but difficult to simulate.
v2 = −k  v1 ……………. (3)

Where;
v1 = velocity of the ball just before the bounce

v2 = velocity of the ball just after the bounce

k = coefficient of restitution, which determines how much of the kinetic energy is


retained after the bounce.
Example; If k = 0.8, it means that 80% of kinetic energy is retained after each bounce.

Exercise
A ball is thrown up at a height of 10m with initial velocity 15m/s. Model the system. Use
acceleration due to gravity, g = -9.81m/s2.
Change the model parameters to initial position to be 30m with initial velocity 10m/s; 10m
height initial velocity 5m/s.
Make conclusion for observations above.

You might also like