When a body hits another body in such a way that their initial velocities are in the direction of the line joining their centers then after collision also their direction of motion remain same and there will not be any change in direction of motion of the bodies if bodies are spherical. Such a collision is called Head-On Collision. The line along which the normal contact force appear during the impact is same as the line joining the center of bodies and is called line of impact.
To understand the basics of Head-On Collision, see the video given below –
The type of collision depends upon the coefficient of restitution between the bodies and on this basis we can classify the Head-On Collisions in different categories like elastic collision, partial elastic collision and inelastic collisions as mentioned in above video. Now we will discuss in detail about partial elastic Head-On Collisions. See the below video for understand this –
The concept of Head-On Collisions is used
in framing variety of numerical problems. To understand the fundamental
applications of such cases, see the example videos given here –