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The terminal velocity of a falling body depends upon the drag forces encountered by the body throughout its fall. The drag forces will depend upon the shape of the body and is orientation with respect to the earth. Other factors affecting drag forces will be altitude, humidity and other variables that affect the density of the air.
Here's the math. It isn't hard.
Vt square root of (2mg/ρACd)
where Vt terminal velocity,m mass of the falling object,g gravitational acceleration,Cd drag coefficient,ρ density of the fluid the object is falling through, andA projected area of the object.
The projected area is also called the "cross-sectional area" where it's a silhouette or a "slice" across the "thickest" part of the falling object taken perpendicular to its orientation in free fall.
A link to the Wikipedia article from which part of the post is copied ('cause it's easy to cut and paste) is supplied.
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A 180 lb person jumps from 16 story building how fast do they fall?
32 feet per second per second is the standard acceleration.As the object accelerates (usually downwards due to gravity), the drag force acting on the object increases. At a particular speed, the drag force produced will be equal to the downward force, mostly the weight (mg), of the object. Eventually, it plummets at a constant speed called terminal velocity (also called settling velocity). Terminal velocity varies directly with the ratio of drag to weight. More drag means a lower terminal velocity, while increased weight means a higher terminal velocity. An object moving downward at greater than terminal velocity (for example because it was affected by a force downward or it fell from a thinner part of the atmosphere or it changed shape) will slow until it reaches the terminal velocity. For example, the terminal velocity of a skydiver in a free-fall position with a semi-closed parachute is about 195 km/h (120 mph or 55m/s).[1] This velocity is the asymptotic limiting value of the acceleration process, since the effective forces on the body more and more closely balance each other as the terminal velocity is approached. In this example, a speed of 50% of terminal velocity is reached after only about 3 seconds, while it takes 8 seconds to reach 90%, 15 seconds to reach 99% and so on. Higher speeds can be attained if the skydiver pulls in his limbs (see also freeflying). In this case, the terminal velocity increases to about 320 km/h (200 mph or 89 m/s),[1] which is also the maximum speed of the peregrine falcon diving on its prey.[2] Competition speed skydivers fly in the head down position reaching even higher speeds. The current world record is 614 mph (988 km/h) by Joseph Kittinger, set at high altitude where the lesser density of the atmosphere decreased drag.[1] An object falling on Earth will fall 9.80 meters per second faster every second (9.8 m/s²). The reason an object reaches a terminal velocity is that the drag force resisting motion is directly proportional to the square of its speed. At low speeds, the drag is much less than the gravitational force and so the object accelerates. As it accelerates, the drag increases, until it equals the weight. Drag also depends on the projected area. This is why things with a large projected area, such as parachutes, have a lower terminal velocity than small objects such as cannon balls.
Can velocity be 0 but speed not 0?
Yes, velocity can be 0 while speed is not 0. Velocity is a vector quantity that includes both speed and direction, so if an object is moving in a straight line and comes to a stop, its velocity is 0 but its speed is not 0. Speed, on the other hand, is a scalar quantity that only considers the magnitude of the motion, regardless of direction.
Sketch a distance-time graph for a body starting from rest how will you determine the speed of a body from this graph?
It is not possible to sketch anything using this browser. The speed of a body cannot be determined from a distance-time graph. The slope of the graph is a measure of the radial velocity - that is the speed directly towards or directly away from the starting point. However, there is absolutely no information of any motion in a transverse direction. Since motion in this direction cannot be assumed to be 0, the distance-time graph cannot be used to determine speed.
What is the formula for the acceleration of a free falling body?
A - 9.8m/s2
What is 32.2 ft per s2 converted to ft per s?
To convert acceleration from feet per second squared (ft/s^2) to feet per second (ft/s), you need to integrate the acceleration over time. In this case, if the acceleration is constant at 32.2 ft/s^2, the velocity can be found by multiplying the acceleration by time. Therefore, 32.2 ft/s^2 is equivalent to 32.2 ft/s.
