Chapter 3: Problem 57
Advanced Engineering Mathematics 5
Historically, in order to maintain quality control over muniwould tions (bullets) produced by an assembly line, the manufacturer use a ballistic pendulum to determine the muzzle velocity of a gun; that is, the speed of a bullet as it leaves the barrel. The ballistic pendulum, invented in 1742 by the British mathematician and military engineer Benjamin Robins (1707-1751), is simply a plane pendulum consisting of a rod of negligible mass to which a block of wood of mass m,.. is attached. The system is set in motion by the impact of a bullet that is moving horizontally at the unknown muzzle velocity v0; at the time of the impact, t = 0, the combined mass is m,,, + m,,. where m0 is the mass of the bullet embedded in the wood. We have seen in(/) of Section 3.10 that in the case of pendulum small oscillations, the angular displacement 6(t) of a plane shown in Figure 3.11.3 is given by the linear DE 6H + (g/!)6 = 0, where 8 > 0 corresponds to motion to the right of vertical. The velocity v,, can be found by measuring the height h of the mass m,.. + m,, at the maximum displacement angle 9ma. shown in RGURE 3.R.3. Intuitively. the horizontal velocity V of the combined mass mw + m,, after impact is only a fraction of the velocity v,, of the bullet, that is. V = ( m" ) v,.. Now recall, a di.stance m,.. + mb s ttaveled by a particle moving along a circular path is related differentiating to the radius land central angle 8 by the formulas = 18. By the last formula with respect to time t, it follows that the angular velocity "' of the mass and its linear velocity v are related by v = b. Thus the initial angular velocity "'o at the time t at which the bullet impacts the wood block is related to V by V = l"'o or "'o = ( m,, ) vl,,. m.,.,+m" (a) Solve the initial-value problem d2() g dl2 + l() = 0, 8(0) = 0, 8'(0) = "'<>- (b) Use the result from part (a) to show that (c) Use Figure 3.R.3 to express cos9m.u. in terms of land h. Then use the first two terms of the Maclaurin series for cos8 to express Bma. in terms of land h. Finally, show that v,. is given (approximately) by ( m,.. + m") v,, = 4 m,, v2gh. FIGURE 3.R.3 Ballistic pendulum in Problem 57
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