Programming Example: Projectile Motion

Problem Statement

This program computes the position (x and y coordinates) and the velocity (magnitude and direction) of a projectile, given t, the time since launch, u, the launch velocity, a, the initial angle of launch (in degree), and g=9.8, the acceleration due to gravity.

The horizontal and vertical displacements are given by the following formulae:

The horizontal and vertical components of the velocity vector are computed as

and the magnitude of the velocity vector is

Finally, the angle between the ground and the velocity vector is determined by the formula below:

Write a program to read in the launch angle a, the time since launch t, and the launch velocity u, and compute the position, the velocity and the angle with the ground.

Solution

! --------------------------------------------------------------------
! Given t, the time since launch, u, the launch velocity, a, the
! initial angle of launch (in degree), and g, the acceleration due to
! gravity, this program computes the position (x and y coordinates)
! and the velocity (magnitude and direction) of a projectile.
! --------------------------------------------------------------------

PROGRAM  Projectile
   IMPLICIT    NONE

   REAL, PARAMETER :: g  = 9.8          ! acceleration due to gravity
   REAL, PARAMETER :: PI = 3.1415926    ! you knew this.  didn't you

   REAL            :: Angle             ! launch angle in degree
   REAL            :: Time              ! time to flight
   REAL            :: Theta             ! direction at time in degree
   REAL            :: U                 ! launch velocity
   REAL            :: V                 ! resultant velocity
   REAL            :: Vx                ! horizontal velocity
   REAL            :: Vy                ! vertical velocity
   REAL            :: X                 ! horizontal displacement
   REAL            :: Y                 ! vertical displacement

   READ(*,*)  Angle, Time, U

   Angle = Angle * PI / 180.0           ! convert to radian
   X     = U * COS(Angle) * Time
   Y     = U * SIN(Angle) * Time - g*Time*Time / 2.0
   Vx    = U * COS(Angle)
   Vy    = U * SIN(Angle) - g * Time
   V     = SQRT(Vx*Vx + Vy*Vy)
   Theta = ATAN(Vy/Vx) * 180.0 / PI

   WRITE(*,*)  'Horizontal displacement : ', X
   WRITE(*,*)  'Vertical displacement   : ', Y
   WRITE(*,*)  'Resultant velocity      : ', V
   WRITE(*,*)  'Direction (in degree)   : ', Theta

END PROGRAM  Projectile

Program Output

45.0  6.0  60.0

The program will generate the following output:

Horizontal displacement : 254.558472
Vertical displacement   : 78.158432
Resultant velocity      : 45.4763107
Direction (in degree)   : -21.1030636

Discussion

• The program uses Angle for the angle a, Time for t, and U for u. The READ statement reads the input.
• The first assignment statement converts the angle in degree to radian. This is necessary since all intrinsic trigonometric functions use radian rather than degree.
• Variables X and Y, which are computed in the second and third assignments, hold the displacements.
• The next two assignments compute the components of the velocity vector.
• The velocity itself is computed in the sixth assignment.
• Finally, the angle with ground, Theta, is computed with the last assignment. Note that ithe result is converted back to degree, since ATAN(x) returns the arc tangent value of x in radian.