Nonuniform Circular Motion

Nonuniform circular motion is the motion of an object traveling in a circle with changing tangential speed. Therefore, this means that a tangential acceleration (a_T) is present besides the centripetal acceleration acting towards the center. (Image below)

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The equations for finding the tangential acceleration and centripetal acceleration are described in their corresponding pages, but generally, the equation for finding tangential acceleration is:

And the equation for finding the centripetal acceleration is:

The solution for the total acceleration will not be explained in detail. Briefly, each of the acceleration vector can be solved separately, and then use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the magnitude of the total acceleration of the two vectors and use trigonometry to solve for the angle (inverse tangent).

If the motion of an object traveling in a circle has constant tangential speed, then the motion is uniform circular motion. The force involved is the centripetal force.

References and Further Readings

• Cutnell JD,Johnson KW. 2000. Physics. 5th Ed.. (NY): John Wiley & Sons. 1064 p.