Re: Falling pellets

[Brian McInnes <bmcinnes@PNC.COM.AU>]

Jim,
I'm not going to check your Stokes' law calculation on a
balmy Sunday afternoon here in the hills behind Sydney.
However let's assume the terminal speed is 337 m/s.  To
reach this speed, without air resistance the pellet would
have to have been falling for about 30 seconds! (time =
(change in speed)/ acceleration)   In that time ut would
have traveled more than 4 km  (distance = 0.5 acceleration
(time squared))! Those figures seem to indicate that if the
terminal speed of a pellet is 337 m/s, then terminal speed
calculations are not relevant to falling pellets from
shotguns discharged towards the zenith.
Brian McInnes
----------
Jim Pengra wrote:
...
 I was interested in the risk due
> to the
> falling pellets from a shotgun discharged toward the zenith. I
> assumed that
> they would come down with nearly terminal velocity, so Stokes' Law
> should
> give a reasonable estimate of their speed. For lead pellets with a
> diameter
> of 1 mm, I calculated (to my surprise) that the terminal velocity
> would be
> 337 m/sec.
...