An Ideal Inelastic Collision Model using Center of Mass Frames Shows Conservation of Kinetic Energy
Edward Henry Dowdye
Shahin Ghazanshahi
A frame transfer model introduced here shows that the kinetic energy is totally conserved and accounted for in the ideal inelastic collision as well as in the elastic collision. The kinetic energy transfer between colliding masses in the ideal inelastic collision case is found to be totally consistent with the law of conservation of energy which states that energy can be neither created nor annihilated. In all inelastic collisions, the two colliding masses move jointly at precisely their center-of-mass velocity, a velocity which is unchanging in a closed system of unbound masses. For this reason, a properly formulated energy transfer model is chosen to be one that goes from the initial frame of the moving mass to that of the center-of-mass frame.
