PHYS-1500 PHYSICAL MODELING
FALL 2006
Rocket Program
A start for this program is available at the course web site under activity 13. The name of the file
is ROCK.xls. It contain everything shown below, down to row 14. Everything below that must
be entered. In the program, the first 100 rows calculate the motion with the engine turned on, and
the next 100 rows calculate the motion when the rocket runs out of fuel, and travels as a free
projectile.
Cells A15, B15, and C15 have initial values of zero. Those zeros should be entered.
Cell D15 should contain an acceleration formula based on the formula in the box in the
spreadsheet.
Cell A16 should have a formula that increments the time by the interval t1, which is in cell B6.
Cell B16 should have a formula that increments position, based on the velocity in cell C16.
Cell C16 should have a formula that increments velocity, based on the acceleration in cell D15.
The formulas in row 16 can be copied to rows 17 through 116.
Then, in cell D115, change the acceleration formula. (Turn off rocket engine. Set the thrust equal
to zero, and stop the mass from decreasing.) Copy the resulting formula to all lower cells through
D215.
In cells A116, B116, and C116 change time interval to t2. Copy the resulting formulae to all
lower cells through row 215.
The spreadsheet should be complete.