Terminal velocity of a cooked sausage ?

[Luca Brazzi]

As per the title…

Back story…
Team breakfast in the City this morning and we were planning our next one to be on the roof terrace of the Walkie Talkie, as if it’s decent weather we would eat outside….. one guy said you could throw a sausage off the roof and kill someone on the pavement below.

So I jump in and tell them the terminal velocity of a randomly tumbling cooked sausage (around 80g in weight) in thick air is likely to be pretty damn slow. But I am unable to work out what kind of speed we are talking about. Google didn’t have the answer, so here I am ;-)

I know there are formulae to help with this…but can anyone have a go at working it out.

Friday’s daft question from me.

Cheers all.

[markmullen]

Throwing a sausage off the walkie talkie building?

We always referred to it as chucking one up Oxford Street

[Impasse]

These homoerotic initiation ceremonies get more involved with each generation.

[Monkeylegend]

Is it frozen?

[lewisco]

Wolfram Alpha says final speed will be 130mph and will take 5.7 seconds to fall. I may have the wrong input numbers though.

[Rod200SX]

Are we talking a richmond or an overcooked wee-willie-winky?

[The Beaver King]

Terminal velocity would be 106.267 m/s.

That is assuming that:

Mass = 80 grams
Cross-sectional area = 314 mm2
Drag coefficient = 0.295
Air Density = 1.5 kg/m3

So yeah, pretty fast!

Quick conversion says 237 mph!!!

Yeah, you could probably kill someone

Edited by The Beaver King on Friday 13th May 10:55

Edited by The Beaver King on Friday 13th May 10:56

[Luca Brazzi]

A human's vMax is around 124 mph. I doubt a sausage would be higher.
While it may once have been frozen, my statement did say cooked.
Visualise a Wall's banger for the shape and size of sausage.

Chop chop. :-)

[Impasse]

What if the person being splatted by the out of control sausage is a vegan? Would it be a reason for hari kari for all involved?

[Luca Brazzi]

The Beaver King said:

Terminal velocity would be 106.267 m/s.

That is assuming that:

Mass = 80 grams
Cross-sectional area = 314 mm2
Drag coefficient = 0.295
Air Density = 1.5 kg/m3

So yeah, pretty fast!

Edited by The Beaver King on Friday 13th May 10:55

But it would be free tumbling in the turbulence.

[5potTurbo]

Is it a pork chop or a pork sausage?



The numbers have been given for the equation. You do the maths.

[Vitorio]

The Beaver King said:

Terminal velocity would be 106.267 m/s.

That is assuming that:

Mass = 80 grams
Cross-sectional area = 314 mm2
Drag coefficient = 0.295
Air Density = 1.5 kg/m3

So yeah, pretty fast!

Edited by The Beaver King on Friday 13th May 10:55

Considering a 9mm slug is 8 grams travelling at 360-400 m/s, that sausage would have roughly 2.5-3 times the kinetic energy, but because it is softer and larger, probably does less damage

A frozen sausage to the head would probably be lethal though, itll be heavier, and not soft/spongy enough to spread out energy on impact.

[R8Steve]

Just throw it and let us know happens

[cbcbcb]

Google says:

Use the terminal velocity formula, v = the square root of ((2*m*g)/(ρ*A*C)).

m = mass of the falling object.
g = the acceleration due to gravity. ...
ρ = the density of the fluid the object is falling through.
A = the projected area of the object. ...
C = the drag coefficient.

Assuming that a sausage is a cylinder 10cm long and 1.5cm across, we get have these figures.

m = 0.08 kg
g = 9.8 m/s^2
ρ = 1.225 kg/m^3
A = 10cm x 1.5cm = .0015 m^2
C = 0.82 (wikipedia figure for a long cylinder)

Put that into the formula...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%28%282+*...

Gives a result of 32m/s or 76 miles per hour, which is roughly equivalent to throwing a sausage at somebody.

[WinstonWolf]

As an aside, the higher the building you throw a cat from the greater it's chances of survival are.

Don't throw cats from buildings

[V40Vinnie]

The Beaver King said:

Terminal velocity would be 106.267 m/s.

That is assuming that:

Mass = 80 grams
Cross-sectional area = 314 mm2
Drag coefficient = 0.295
Air Density = 1.5 kg/m3

So yeah, pretty fast!

Quick conversion says 237 mph!!!

Yeah, you could probably kill someone

Edited by The Beaver King on Friday 13th May 10:55

Edited by The Beaver King on Friday 13th May 10:56

Terminal velocity may not be enough what about impact force?

[callmedave]

WinstonWolf said:

As an aside, the higher the building you throw a cat from the greater it's chances of survival are.

Don't throw cats from buildings

Anything above the 7th floor if memory serves me correct? Assuming the Cat is not frozen.

[Luca Brazzi]

Great and amusing answers.....reminds me why I come to PH :-)

[weeboot]

Using the 80 gram / 237 model, it would deliver 449 joules of energy.
Apparently, 100 joules is enough to harm
A paintball delivers (typically) 9.28 joules.

If all of the maths are correct, it's gonna sting!

[FunkyNige]

Mice can fall from tall buildings and survive so I'd be surprised if it would even break the skin of the sausage on the concrete, let along kill anyone. But I guess it would depend on how a sausage falls - if it falls pointy end first it would obviously be quicker than long edge first.