Iron Man 2

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Iron Man is an iconic Marvel character with arguably the most interesting backstory of the main cast of Avengers, but that does not change the fact that Tony Stark is just a regular human with no super strength or durability. Since Tony Stark is just a normal human, there is a problem with the way he pilots his suit, especially the way he does not take his time to decelerate, stop, or change directions.

Image result for iron man 2 superhero landing

In the scene above, it is obvious that Tony does not even attempt to slow down in any way except when hitting the ground, which is a major problem. The suit that Tony wears does not affect the force exerted on his body, since the only way to decrease the force is to slow down over a longer period of time. The only way the suit can do that is by using the thrusters to accelerate upwards. However, since they are not used in the scene, the physics acting on Tony is not much different than if Tony were without his suit.

First off, we must calculate Tony’s momentum. To calculate momentum, we must know mass and velocity. The mass we will be using will be Tony’s mass, so we can use use Robert Downey Jr.’s mass of 77 kg. We can estimate the velocity to be quite a bit greater than the terminal velocity of a human, since Tony has on a heavy suit giving him more mass and he is accelerating downwards. A very generous estimate would be about 85 m/s. Using p=mv, we calculate momentum to be 6,545 kg*m/s. Next, to calculate force, we must estimate the time it takes for Tony to come to a complete stop. Because the metal used in Tony’s suit is sturdy and most likely does not compress well and the floor he landed on did not seem to be damaged at all, an estimate of about 0.02 seconds would be accurate. Using F=p/t, the calculated force that Tony experienced was about 327,000 N. For reference it takes around 4,000 N to break an adult human femur and the amount of force Tony experienced is approximately the weight of 7 adult elephants. The instant Tony hit the ground he experienced around 434 g’s, or 434 times the Earth’s acceleration due to gravity, so it is safe to assume that most if not all of his bones are shattered and it seems unlikely that he would even stand a chance of surviving the landing.

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