Processing math: 100%

Impact

In [1]:
m1, m2, m = 400.0, 100.0, 500.0
k  = 100E3
h  = 0.10
xM = 9.83E-3

Velocity at impact

The potential energy of body no.2 before release is V=m2gh and its kinetic energy is 0, the potential energy at impact point is 0 and the kinetic energy is T=m2v22/2. During the free fall no energy is dissipated, hence m2gh=12m2v22 v2=2gh

Initial velocity of glued body

Using the conservation of momentum, the velocity v0 at time 0+ can be derived as follows m2v2=(m1+m2)v0 v0=v2m2m1+m2

Response

The characteristics of the glued system are:

  • stiffness k,
  • mass m=m1+m2,
  • natural frequency of vibration ωn=k/m

We have the superposition of two different responses,

  1. the response to the weight of body no.2, with Δ=m2g/k it is

    xΔ=Δ(1cosωnt).

  2. the response to the initial velocity,

    xv=v0ωnsinωnt

Summing up,

x(t)=Δ+(v0ωnsinωntΔcosωnt)

and the maximum displacement xM is

xM=Δ+Δ2+v20ω2n.

Rearranging and squaring both members, it is

(xMΔ)2=x2M2xMΔ+Δ2=Δ2+v20ω2n

and eventually we can inject the dependencies on g to have

xM(xM2m2gk)=2ghm22m2mk.

Collecting g on one side of the equation and dividing both members by xM we have

2m2g(1+hxMm2m)=kxM

and it is possible to write the code fragment that gives us the value of the surface acceleration of gravity.

In [2]:
g = k*xM/2/m2/(1+h/xM*m2/m)
print('g = %.3f m/s^2'%g)
g = 1.620 m/s^2

A summary inspection of Wikipedia reveals that the surface gravity of the Moon is

gMoon=1.62m/s2.