Effect of Air Resistence on a Bullet

by Christopher Denton

Submitted : Spring 2010

In this project, the velocity of a bullet is analyzed while the calculation for air resistance is included. Including air resistance makes the computation of the position of the projectile much more difficult because a force (air resistance/drag) is now acting on the projectile. This adds a horizontal component to the velocity vector which we previously assumed to be nil. An analytical approach to describe the velocity and position is difficult, if not impossible. In this project, a numerical approach using first-order Euler integrations is used to approximate the value of the function.

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