-1
$\begingroup$

My doubt is a rather silly, simple one but i cant seem to understand what's wrong.

Let's assume a rocket is moving up with a constant acceleration of a, is moving strictly vertically(no gravity turns, etc.) and reaches a height h. Obviously the time taken should be $t=\sqrt{\frac{2h}{a-g}}$(net acceleration is a - g). But in this case h has a bigger significant value, so that gravity also changes with height. I tried to do the following(which obviously is false): $$\frac{d^2s}{dt^2}=(a-g(\frac{R}{R+ds})^2)$$ I've tried the binomial expansion aswell: $$\frac{d^2s}{dt^2}=(a-g(1-2\frac{ds}{R}))$$ The problem here is i cant integrate the above integral. Where did i go wrong?

$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

0
$\begingroup$

The way you formulated your question confused me a bit. I think that you trying to consider the case where there a constant external force and not a constant acceleration. If that's the case here is my solution.

As you suggested if the value of $h$ is rather large then we must make use of the full formula describing gravitational force, \begin{equation} F_g=G\frac{m M}{(R+h)^2}, \end{equation} where $R$ is the radius of the earth and $M$ is the mass of the earth. On top of that we also assume that there is a constant external force $F$ pushing the rocket upward. Then Newton's equation is written as \begin{equation} m \frac{d^2 h}{dt^2} = F - G\frac{m M}{(R+h)^2}. \end{equation} Now you can try to solve the equation directly but to me it seems more advantageous to take a secondary route and use conservation of energy. Recall that the variation of total energy is equal to the work done by the external forces (in this case $F$), and that the gravitational force admits a potential energy given by $U=- G(m M)/(R+h)$. Then we may write \begin{equation} \begin{aligned} \Delta E=& W_{est} = F \Delta h \\ \Delta U +& \Delta K = F \Delta h \\ - G\frac{m M}{R+h} + G\frac{m M}{R+h_0} &+ \frac{1}{2} m v^2 - \frac{1}{2} m v_0^2= F (h-h_0). \end{aligned} \end{equation} Now we fix the initial conditions as $v_0=0, h_0=0$ and the equation simplifies to ($v= dh/dt$) \begin{equation} \frac{1}{2} m \biggl(\frac{dh}{dt}\biggl)^2= Fh+ G\frac{m M}{R+h}- G\frac{m M}{R} \rightarrow \\ \rightarrow \frac{dh}{dt}=\sqrt{\frac{2}{m} \biggl(Fh+ G\frac{m M}{R+h}-G\frac{mM}{R}\biggl)}. \end{equation} In the last equation we can use separation of variables and perform an integral in $h$ (probably using Mathematica) to get the correct answer.

$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks a lot for the answer and yes i actually meant constant force srry for confusion. I did understand the method of conservation of energy, the way how you did it, but i still am stuck and unable to understand, how there ,at the demoninators(R+h of both the equations), have you put R+h . Shouldnt it be R+dh since the potential energy or the gravitational attraction is minutely increasing with infinitely small values of h. $\endgroup$
    – Star Gazer
    Commented Feb 4 at 11:55
  • $\begingroup$ Well in this case I am evaluating a finite potential energy difference $\Delta U=U(h)-U(h_0=0)$, there is no infinitesimal variation. Note also that if you want to evaluate a infinitesimal energy variation the correct formula would be \begin{equation} dU= \frac{dU}{dh} dh= -F_{grav} dh \end{equation}where i used the fact that $F_{grav}=- \frac{dU}{dh}$ $\endgroup$ Commented Feb 4 at 13:40

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.