Fluid Dynamics

behind falling
Parachute
J AY D A R J I
 SIMPLE CASE
(CALCULATION FOR NO DRAG)
Suppose an Object (not parachute) with mass ‘m’ is falling from height ‘h’ with zero initial velocity.

Let no drag is acting on it . Than the only force acting on it is Gravity

F= mg {1}

From this we get it’s impact velocity

Vimp=g*T {2} (here Vimp is velocity when it touches ground ;

And T is Time for reach ground)

And acceleration

a=g {3}
 We can calculate time T for touch to ground by

T ={4}

And height from

h= {5}

Substitute equation 4 in 2 we get

Vimp = {6}

In this case velocity has linear relation with time

And second plot shows the variation in height with respect

to time as it falls from 100 feet with 0 initial speed and
object touch the ground at 2.5 second with an impact
velocity of 25 m/s.

V → t & h → t plot
 Falling Small GSI Parachute
Let a small GSI Parachute with mass ‘m’ is falling from height ‘h’ with zero initial velocity .

The force acting on it

F = mg – ½ Cd A {1}

From this we get ;

{2}

And it’s touchdown Velocity is

Vtd {3}

Where
What is Terminal Velocity
When an object is falling we notice some initial gain in it’s velocity hence there is some acceleration
Initially but the moment when Drag is equal to weight acceleration becomes zero and velocity at that
instant is called Terminal Velocity.
It is the maximum velocity attainable by an object as it falls

Vter = = {4}

Let assume all variation in Drag term to be constant and terminal velocity reached by an object at
time t hence it touch ground with terminal velocity

hence Vtd
i.e. =1 {5}
But Equation 5 only true when t
It means that we can not reach terminal speed in finit time but we can attend some
percentage of it
{6}
Like; time to archive 99% of terminal velocity =

Now in our case V= {7}

From equation 7 we get it’s second order differential equation

- y’’[t] = {8}

We can understand the relation between h & t by solving and ploting this equation in mathematica.
t→V Plot shows that within 1.5 second we reach terminal velocity.

.
 Reynold number (Re)
Reynold number is a dimensionless quantity that helps predict fluid flow patterns in different situations by measuring the ratio of inertial and

viscous forces.


At low Reynolds numbers, flows tend to be dominated by laminar flow, while at high Reynolds numbers, flows tend to be turbulent.


In Laminar flow fluid particles follow smooth path in layers, with each layer moving smoothly past the adjacent layers with little or no

mixing. It is occur at low velocity and dominated by viscous Forces.

Turbulent flow is characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity .It is contrast to laminar flow. It is dominated by inertial
forces ,which tend to produce chaotic eddies, vortices and other flow instabilities.
The Reynolds numbers is defined as
Re ==
Where ;
(Kg/m3)
(m/s)
L is characteristic length(m)

v is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid (m2/s)

Dynamic viscosity is a measure of a fluid’s resistance to shear. It is a tangential force per unit area
required to move one horizontal plane of a fluid with respect to another at unit velocity while maintaining
a unit distance apart.
==
Kinematic viscosity is a ratio of dynamic viscosity to the fluid density. It is a measure of a fluid resistance
to flow under gravitational forces.
v=