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arXiv · 2208.03695

Physical description and modelling of paper strip flights

Leonard Münchenbach·Leo Neff
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Abstract

Paper strips, e.g. confetti, descending to the floor begin to rotate around the horizontal axis after a short time. This slows down the vertical velocity compared to free fall and adds a horizontal velocity component. The frequency of rotation, the angle of fall and the speed of fall seem to depend on the dimensions and mass of the paper strips. The physics of this flight can be described, i.e. the movement, the translation of the centroid (energy analysis, force analysis, formula for fall speed v(b,h,m), formula for angle of fall {\alpha}(b,h,m)), the rotation around centroid (formula for frequency f(b,h,m), rotation speed), the flight path with the results from translation and rotation, the visualization of air turbulence and the loss of energy.

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Leonard Münchenbach, Leo Neff. 2022-08-07. Physical description and modelling of paper strip flights. https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.03695

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