Velocity Augmentation Suit

A mad scientist has created a special suit which supplies a propulsive force to the wearer-suit pair which is directly proportional to the velocity of the wearer-suit. Even more extraordinarily, the suit's exotic propulsion mechanism allows it to supply this force without expelling reaction matter (as rockets do).

The scientist tries out his new suit within Earth's ambient surface gravity. The net force on the scientist-suit pair can be expressed as follows: F = α v m g ȷ ^ , {\vec{F} = \alpha \vec{v} - mg \hat{\jmath}}, where v \vec{v} is the velocity, m m is the combined mass of the scientist-suit, g g is the ambient gravitational acceleration, and ȷ ^ \hat{\jmath} is a unit vector in the vertical direction ( ı ^ (\hat{\imath} would denote a horizontal unit vector ) . ). The constant α \alpha has units of kg/s \text{kg/s} .

The scientist takes off in his suit from ground level at time t = 0 t = 0 with the following velocity ( ( in m/s : \text{m/s}: ) v 0 = 10 ı ^ + 20 ȷ ^ . {{\vec{v_0} = 10 \hat{\imath} + 20 \hat{\jmath} }}. If the direction of the suit-wearing scientist's velocity asymptotically approaches the horizontal as the elapsed time tends toward infinity, what must be the value of the constant α \alpha ?


Details and Assumptions:

  • Neglect air resistance, as well as relativistic effects.
  • g = 10 m/s 2 . g = 10 \text{ m/s}^2.
  • m = 150 kg . m = 150\text{ kg}.


The answer is 75.

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1 solution

Guilherme Niedu
May 13, 2017

There are two equations, one for velocity on x-axis and other for velocity on y-axis (note: x ˙ \dot{x} means the time derivative of x ) x) :

v x ˙ = α m v x \large \displaystyle \dot{v_x} = \frac{\alpha}{m}v_x

v y ˙ = α m v y g \large \displaystyle \dot{v_y} = \frac{\alpha}{m}v_y - g

First one leads to:

v x ( t ) = v 0 x e ( α / m ) t \large \displaystyle v_x(t) = v_{0x} e^{(\alpha/m) t}

v x ( t ) = 10 e ( α / 150 ) t \color{#20A900} \boxed{\large \displaystyle v_x(t) = 10 e^{(\alpha/150) t}}

While second leads to:

d v y v y g m / α = ( α / m ) d t \large \displaystyle \frac{dv_y}{v_y - gm/ \alpha} = (\alpha /m) dt

Integrating both sides:

ln ( v y g m / α ) 20 v y = α t / m \large \displaystyle \ln \left (v_y - gm/ \alpha \right ) \Bigg |_{20}^{v_y} = \alpha t/m

v y ( t ) = g m / α + ( 20 g m / α ) e ( α / m ) t \large \displaystyle v_y(t) = gm/ \alpha + (20 - gm/ \alpha) e^{(\alpha/m) t}

v y ( t ) = ( 1500 / α ) + ( 20 1500 / α ) e ( α / 150 ) t \color{#20A900} \boxed{\large \displaystyle v_y(t) = (1500/ \alpha) + (20 - 1500/ \alpha) e^{(\alpha /150)t}}

The angle with respect to the horizontal has its tangent equal to:

tan [ θ ( t ) ] = v y ( t ) v x ( t ) \large \displaystyle \tan[\theta(t)] = \frac{v_y(t)}{v_x(t)}

tan [ θ ( t ) ] = ( 1500 / α ) e ( α / 150 ) t + ( 2 150 / α ) \color{#20A900} \boxed{\large \displaystyle \tan[\theta(t)] = (1500/ \alpha) e^{-(\alpha /150)t} + (2-150/ \alpha)}

We want the limit of the angle when time approaches infinity to be 0 0 . So:

lim t tan [ θ ( t ) ] = 2 150 / α = 0 \large \displaystyle \lim_{t \rightarrow \infty} \tan[\theta(t)] = 2 - 150/ \alpha = 0

Thus:

α = 75 \color{#3D99F6} \boxed{\large \displaystyle \alpha = 75}

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