[Physics] What formula do I use to calculate the force of impact of a falling object

collisionconservation-lawsmomentumnewtonian-mechanics

I am trying to calculate the force of impact of a falling object. I did my egg drop project. I dropped the egg from 10m with a mass of 126kg and with the velocity of 14.1 m/s. Which formula should I use to calculate the force of impact?
I found the kinetic energy first and later I used the following formula: $W=Fs$
to find the force of impact. Is that the right formula?

Best Answer

There is no straightforward way to calculate the force of impact, because this latter is defined by the deceleration of the egg at the end of its journey as a function of time. In turn, this deceleration profile is defined by the elastic properties of both the egg and the surface it hits, and how each of these objects deforms and shatters during the impact. You can calculate the egg's velocity just before impact straightforwardly, but then the calculation becomes complicated by many elasticity and material properties which are probably almost impossible to measure. If you're really interested in the force of impact, it would most readily be measured, either:

  1. Indirectly, with high speed motion photography of the collision so that you can infer the deceleration as a function of time; or

  2. With stress sensors embedded in the impacted surface being sampled at very high speed, which directly measure the force on the impacted surface as a function of time.