Subtle features in projectile motion with quadratic drag found through Taylor series expansions
Abstract
Many attempts have been made at finding the trajectory for the projectile problem with quadratic drag. However, no complete analytical solution is possible due to the nonlinear coupling between differential equations describing the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) velocity components that result in the final trajectory solution, y = f(x). Over the years, a number of approximate analytical methods, including Taylor series expansions, have been applied to the problem. However, whereas prior works expanded Vx by assuming Vx = Vx(t), the expansion here is based on the faster converging 1/Vx(t), whose reciprocal better captures the monotonically decreasing nature of Vx.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1119/10.0009227
Entities
People
- Antonio Corvo
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology