[Physics] How to figure out the height it would take for an object to reach terminal velocity

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I'm trying to figure out how high an object would have to be dropped to reach it's terminal velocity. Specifically if an object had a terminal velocity of 520 mph, how would I figure out how high it would have to be dropped to reach that speed. I know there's probably more factors that go into this then just knowing it's terminal velocity, but if someone could just help me out with an equation and what to input that would be great and I can handle it from there. I've searched every where for an equation that would solve it, and for some reason I can't seem to picture the process in my head to figure it out.

Best Answer

Okay, so here's the basic physics: it comes down to differential equations.

Big objects in air tend to see $v^2$ drag. Plugging this into $F = m a$, this means that something which is falling straight downward with speed $v$ will obey the nonlinear differential equation: $$\frac {dv}{dt} = \frac 1\lambda v^2 - g$$for some length $\lambda$.

The terminal velocity is the one where $dv/dt = 0$ hence $v_t^2 = \lambda ~ g,$ giving a simple way to compute $\lambda$ if you know the terminal velocity and the graviational acceleration

Here's the part that you're not going to like: actually solving this equation gives$$\int ~\frac{dv}{v_t}~ \frac{-1}{1 - (v/v_t)^2} = \frac {v_t} \lambda ~ t + C~.$$Then, choosing $v = v_t~\tanh{u}$ we find$$-u = \frac t\tau + C; ~~~v = -v_t~\tanh~\frac{t - t_0}{\tau}~.$$The reason this is frustrating is not that the hyperbolic tangent $\tanh$ is an awful function or anything -- it's actually very easy to work with and quite well-behaved! -- but because it means that we never actually attain the terminal velocity, we just get closer and closer to it. So the answer is trivially $\infty$.

With that said, if you want to find, say $v = 0.9 ~ v_t$ many calculators support the $\operatorname{atanh}$ operation that inverts the hyperbolic tangent; for example Wolfram Alpha gives $1.47222\dots$. With this time constant $\tau = \lambda / v_t$ you know that from rest, it takes $1.47~\tau$ to achieve that speed.

As for integrating once more to achieve a vertical position, it is not too hard to do that integral because $\tanh = \sinh / \cosh$ so you can simply use $u = \cosh~\frac{t - t_0}\tau$ for the substitution. So that gives a simple result of $$y(t) = y_0 - \lambda ~ \ln\left(\cosh~\frac{t - t_0}\tau \right).$$Hope that helps. Nonlinear differential equations rapidly get quite hairy; this is one of the few that is both really straightforward and which offers some really useful/invertible/manageable answers.