by Andrew Kickertz
I started thinking more about collisions of bowling pins a couple weeks ago, and I’ve come up with something that I think is pretty cool. It is a 2D frictionless simulation of 1 ball and 10 pins operating primarily on the following equations:
ν0=(V0−V′0)⋅n^
Vf=V0−mν0/M(1+e)
V′f=V′0+mν0/M′(1+e)
where ν0 is the normal component of the incident velocity, V0 and V′0 are the initial velocities of the 2 bodies, M and M′ are the masses, and m is the effective mass. Note that these equations must be performed in a coordinate system spanned by vectors tangent and normal to the both bodies at the contact point. These formulas come from Stronge’s (2000) book, Impact Mechanics.
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