In this section, we are going to look at the Collisions ad Explosions. On our list today, we are going to touch and discuss the following:

Types of Collisions

Elastic Collisions

Inelastic Collisions

Explosions

Explosions: Energy and Heat

Important Equations and Quantities

In most physics courses questions about collisions and explosions occur and to solve these, we must use the ideas of momentum and energy; with a bit mathematics of course. This section allows you to pull the momentum and energy ideas together easily with some specific problems

First of all, we have to understand what Collision really means as we won’t assume you already know the meaning/definition of collision.

Collision is short duration interaction between two bodies or more than two bodies simultaneously causing change in motion of bodies involved due to internal forces acted between them during this. Collisions involve forces (there is a change in velocity). The magnitude of the velocity difference at impact is called the closing speed. All collisions conserve momentum. What distinguishes different types of collisions is whether they also conserve kinetic energy. Line of impact – It is the line which is common normal for surfaces are closest or in contact during impact. This is the line along which internal force of collision acts during impact and Newton’s coefficient of restitution is defined only along this line.

Types of Collisions

We will consider two types of collisions in this section.

Elastic Collisions
Inelastic Collisions

In both types of collisions, total energy and total momentum is always conserved. Kinetic energy is conserved for elastic collisions, but not for inelastic collisions.

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