Modeling and Simulation in Python

21DRAG

In the previous chapter, we simulated a penny falling in a vacuum, that is, without air resistance. But the computational framework we used is very general; it is easy to add additional forces, including drag. In this chapter, I’ll present a model of drag force and add it to the simulation.

This chapter is available as a Jupyter notebook where you can read the text, run the code, and work on the exercises. You can access the notebooks at https://allendowney.github.io/ModSimPy.

Calculating Drag Force

As an object moves through a fluid, like air, the object applies force to the air and, in accordance with Newton’s third law of motion, the ...