A bouncing ball captured with a stroboscopic flash at 25 images per second. Each impact of the ball is inelastic, meaning that energy dissipates at each bounce. Ignoring air resistance, the square root of the ratio of the height of one bounce to that of the preceding bounce gives the coefficient of restitution for the ball/surface impact.

An inelastic collision is a collision in which kinetic energy is not conserved (see elastic collision).

In collisions of macroscopic bodies, some kinetic energy is turned into vibrational energy of the atoms, causing a heating effect, and the bodies are deformed.

The molecules of a gas or liquid rarely experience perfectly elastic collisions because kinetic energy is exchanged between the molecules' translational motion and their internal degrees of freedom with each collision. At any one instant, half the collisions are – to a varying extent – inelastic (the pair possesses less kinetic energy after the collision than before), and half could be described as “super-elastic” (possessing more kinetic energy after the collision than before). Averaged across an entire sample, molecular collisions are elastic.

Inelastic collisions may not conserve kinetic energy, but they do obey conservation of momentum. Simple ballistic pendulum problems obey the conservation of kinetic energy only when the block swings to its largest angle.

In nuclear physics, an inelastic collision is one in which the incoming particle causes the nucleus it strikes to become excited or to break up. Deep inelastic scattering is a method of probing the structure of subatomic particles in much the same way as Rutherford probed the inside of the atom (see Rutherford scattering). Such experiments were performed on protons in the late 1960s using high-energy electrons at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). As in Rutherford scattering, deep inelastic scattering of electrons by proton targets revealed that most of the incident electrons interact very little and pass straight through, with only a small number bouncing back. This indicates that the charge in the proton is concentrated in small lumps, reminiscent of Rutherford's discovery that the positive charge in an atom is concentrated at the nucleus. However, in the case of the proton, the evidence suggested three distinct concentrations of charge (quarks) and not one.

[edit] Formula

The formulas for the velocities after a one-dimensional collision are:

where

V_1f is the final velocity of the first object after impact

V_2f is the final velocity of the second object after impact

V₁ is the initial velocity of the first object before impact

V₂ is the initial velocity of the second object before impact

M₁ is the mass of the first object

M₂ is the mass of the second object

C_R is the coefficient of restitution; if it is 1 we have an elastic collision; if it is 0 we have a perfectly inelastic collision, see below.

In a center of momentum frame the formulas reduce to:

V_1f = − C_RV₁

V_2f = − C_RV₂

For two- and three-dimensional collisions the velocities in these formulas are the components perpendicular to the tangent line/plane at the point of contact.

[edit] Perfectly inelastic collision

In a perfectly inelastic collision ^[1], i.e., a zero coefficient of restitution, the colliding particles stick together. It is necessary to consider conservation of momentum:

hence the final velocity is

The reduction of total kinetic energy is equal to the total kinetic energy before the collision in a center of momentum frame with respect to the system of two particles, because in such a frame the kinetic energy after the collision is zero. In this frame most of the kinetic energy before the collision is that of the particle with the smaller mass. In another frame, in addition to the reduction of kinetic energy there may be a transfer of kinetic energy from one particle to the other; the fact that this depends on the frame shows how relative this is.

With time reversed we have the situation of two objects pushed away from each other, e.g. shooting a projectile, or a rocket applying thrust (compare the derivation of the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation).

[edit] See also

• Elastic collision
• Coefficient of restitution
• Oblique inelastic collision between two homogeneous spheres : see article "The Art of Billiards Play" on http://www.regispetit.com/bil_praa.htm which gives the general vector equations of a collision between two bodies of any speed.

[edit] Animation

1. ^

   Animation of a completely inelastic collision between equal masses