Taggart Matt. The Mechanics of the Trebuchet

Document in PDF-format. – 22 p.The trebuchet was an immense counterpoise siege engine that became the artillery weapon of choice throughout the middle ages. This project’s aim was to model the mechanics of one such engine by use of an Euler method as opposed to the more common Lagrangian form. While the mechanics of second complexity level have been modelled quite successfully using Excel, once further complexity and greater degrees of freedom are introduced the difficulty increases substantially. For the basic seesaw, the optimum conditions were found to be a 4:1 arm length ratio, a 100:1 mass ratio, and an angle of release of approximately 37.49º. Preliminary results have also been acquired for the more complicated trebuchet with sling model, these are also presented here.