Abstract
The classical trajectory method of Abrines and Percival (1966) has been extended to relativistic velocities of the charged particles. The method is based on the solution of the classical relativistic Hamilton equations of motion for a three-body system consisting of a target nucleus, a charged projectile and a single electron. The electromagnetic fields are taken to be of Lienard-Wiechert type with extended charges of the nuclei. The theory has been applied to calculate the cross section, mean impact parameter and angular distribution for the ionisation of a singly occupied K shell in U-U collisions at Elab=1 and 10 GeV/n.