Topic: free fall motion

Friday, September 18th, 2020

Lesson objective
State that the acceleration of free-fall for a body
near to the Earth is constant and is approximately 10
m/s2.
Describe qualitatively the motion of bodies with
constant weight falling with and without air
resistance (including reference to terminal velocity).
Acceleration of free fall
The force with which an object is pulled towards the
centre of Earth is called gravity.
Acceleration experienced by an object when it falls freely
under the influence of gravity is called acceleration due to
gravity or acceleration of free fall.
When an object is released near to the surface of the
Earth, it falls under the influence of gravity. This is
known as free fall.
Free fall
 The acceleration of free fall or acceleration due to gravity is
denoted by g.
 The acceleration of free fall does not depend upon the material,
size or shape of falling objects.
 The acceleration due to gravity is 10 m/s2.
 This is true in the absence of air resistance.
The experiment below shows, all the air has been
removed from the tube. Both feather and lead ball
dropped from same height and reaches bottom of
the tube at the same time. This is because all the
objects in the absence of air resistance, accelerates
towards the earth at same rate that is 10m/s2.
Terminal velocity
When object falls through air, they experience air resistance.
Air resistance is a frictional force that opposes the motion of the
moving objects. It has following characteristics:
1) It increases with the speed of the object.
2) It increases with the surface area of the object.
3) It increases with the density of air.
Terminal velocity
When any object falls through air, due to the gravitational
force or weight the object will exerts a resistive force. This
resistive force increases as the object moves faster. Resistive
force acts in the opposite direction to which the object is
moving. And after some, a point is reached when the
resistive force and weight of the object becomes equals, the
object will stop accelerating. When this happens, the object
moves with constant speed, this is known as terminal
velocity.
 Consider a parachutist jumping from aircraft.

When the parachutist jumps from the aircraft, his speed

increase downward due to weight of his body or gravitational
force

As his speed increases his air resistance will also

increases in the opposite direction of fall.

After sometime air resistance will be big enough to balance

the parachutist’s weight. At this point the forces are balanced
so his speed becomes uniform - this is called terminal
velocity.

March 26, 2024

 When he opens his parachute the air resistance
suddenly increases because of the increase in area and
the speed decreases.

After some time again air resistance decreases until it

balances his weight. The parachutist has now reached a
new, lower terminal velocity.

March 26, 2024

 Speed-time graph of a parachutist is shown below…

Parachute opens – diver slows

speed Speed decreasing
down
Speed increases…

Terminal velocity
reached…

Time
New, lower terminal velocity reached Diver hits the ground