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 Author Topic: Rolling a ball over a terrain  (Read 3800 times) 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Click to toggle author information(expand message area).
HornDog
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 « Embed this message on: August 22, 2013, 06:43:41 pm » posted from:MANCHESTER,ENGLAND,UNITED KINGDOM

Sorry for the duplicate post - realised I had posted in the wrong area.

Hi, I hope I can give as much information as necessary to help me out. I have a better than average Mathematical ability and am an extremely competent software engineer, but have limited knowledge in physics. My attempts so far to model the behavior below have had better success than I would have expected, but I really need to do this 'properly'!.

I am creating an application whereby a ball is rolling across a 2d surface (imagine a ball on a table, being looking down upon birds eye view).

This surface is not flat, at any location I can tell you how much angle there is relative to ground (assuming the ground is flat) - I can give two angles, the X and Y.

The ball will be 'free rolling' I think that is the correct term in that it will never slip, slide, bounce, fly! I simply want to give it a push in direction D and it roll merrily along the contours of the surface until such a point that friction (if thats the right term?) slows the ball down to a stop.

My original model was very basic with an xspeed and yspeed, these being accelerated by a fraction of a gravity value that was higher or lower depending on the amount of X or Y slope. I then simply subtracted a 'drag' value that was acting against the X and Y speeds.

It works, but I do get some odd results, I think down to the fact that the drag is not relative to the amount of X or Y speed - in otherwords you might not be travelling in X at all, but drag starts accelerating you again. Not totally sure to be honest, but I am at the point of seeking help!

This forum looks like a good place to start, I am sure I have probably not been very clear on the above - so please ask away.

D
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Fu-Kwun Hwang
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 « Embed this message Reply #1 on: August 27, 2013, 03:38:48 pm » posted from:,,Satellite Provider

Sorry for the duplicate post - realised I had posted in the wrong area.
I am sorry for the late reply. I was busy conducting teacher's workshop at my university during last week.

Quote
Hi, I hope I can give as much information as necessary to help me out. I have a better than average Mathematical ability and am an extremely competent software engineer, but have limited knowledge in physics. My attempts so far to model the behavior below have had better success than I would have expected, but I really need to do this 'properly'!.

I am creating an application whereby a ball is rolling across a 2d surface (imagine a ball on a table, being looking down upon birds eye view).

This surface is not flat, at any location I can tell you how much angle there is relative to ground (assuming the ground is flat) - I can give two angles, the X and Y.

The ball will be 'free rolling' I think that is the correct term in that it will never slip, slide, bounce, fly! I simply want to give it a push in direction D and it roll merrily along the contours of the surface until such a point that friction (if thats the right term?) slows the ball down to a stop.
In idea case fro free rolling in flat surface, the ball will move continuously. Free rolling is static friction, which means that no energy is loss due to friction.

Quote
My original model was very basic with an xspeed and yspeed, these being accelerated by a fraction of a gravity value that was higher or lower depending on the amount of X or Y slope. I then simply subtracted a 'drag' value that was acting against the X and Y speeds.

It works, but I do get some odd results, I think down to the fact that the drag is not relative to the amount of X or Y speed - in otherwords you might not be travelling in X at all, but drag starts accelerating you again. Not totally sure to be honest, but I am at the point of seeking help!
The simple model for drag is proportional to velocity with a minus sign, and it work for most of the cases.
If the ball is moving in y direction(not traveling in X ), then the drag will be in the minus y direction (so no drag in X direction).

I would still suggest you use drag force $\vec{F}=-b\, \vec{v}$ as your drag force.

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lookang
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http://weelookang.blogspot.com

 « Embed this message Reply #2 on: August 29, 2013, 08:34:41 am » posted from:SINGAPORE,SINGAPORE,SINGAPORE

i have some model here that u can change to want u want

http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnujava/index.php?topic=1840.0

a car rolling down a slope and colliding with bumper with coefficient of restitution e = 0.2
http://weelookang.blogspot.com/2010/06/ejs-open-source-multi-objects-rolling.html
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/44365627/lookangEJSworkspace/export/ejs_users_sgeducation_lookang_Car6web.jar
author:Ejs Open Source Rocket Car on an Inclined Plane Java Applet is by Wolfgang Christian, Francisco Esquembre, and Mario Belloni using the Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) modeling tool, now remixed by lookang

enjoy!
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"The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven." ..."John Milton(1608-1674, English Poet)"