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Notes Acceleration

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16 views

Notes Acceleration

Uploaded by

stacyjumpo1
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ACCELERATION

Acceleration
The change in velocity per unit of time;
- it is a vector quantity and must have a direction;
- symbol is a; SI unit is m/s/s or m/s2 .
- Since velocity is a vector quantity involving speed and direction, acceleration
occurs when the speed of an object changes, and/or the direction of the object
changes.
- The definition of acceleration can be expressed mathematically as,

- where vf is the final velocity and vi is the initial velocity.


- The change in time is usually expressed as simply t because you assume that
the initial time was zero.

Instantaneous acceleration
The acceleration at that instant in time.

Uniform acceleration
The constant, unchanging acceleration; when an object is uniformly accelerated, the
speed of the entire time interval that the acceleration occurred over can be represented
by the average velocity of that time interval.

Variable acceleration
The non-uniform acceleration.

Positive acceleration
The velocity of object increases.

Negative acceleration
The velocity of object decreases; the object may still be traveling in the positive
direction, but since the final velocity is smaller than the initial velocity, the object's
acceleration is negative.
An explanation of positive and negative acceleration:

Consider an object moving to the right as moving in a positive direction and one moving
to the left as moving in a negative direction. Consider speeding up as representing
positive and slowing down as representing negative.

• An object going right (+) and speeding up (+) has positive acceleration (+ x + = +).

• An object moving right (+) and slowing down (-) has negative acceleration (+ x - = -).

• An object going left (-) and slowing down (-) has positive acceleration (- x - = +).

• An object going left (-) and speeding up (+) has negative acceleration (- x + = -).

Note: a negative acceleration does not always mean the object is slowing down. If
an object were moving in the negative direction, the acceleration would be
negative as the object gained speed and positive when the object lost speed. An
example of this is the acceleration due to gravity. An object in free fall has a
negative acceleration even though it is increasing speed. It is negative because
the object is moving in a negative direction.

Average acceleration
The change in velocity divided by the time taken to make this change

2
Acceleration due to gravity (or g) equal to –9.80 m/𝑠 .

The acceleration due to gravity is a constant rate of acceleration.


It is negative because its direction is negative (it always acts down, or toward the center
of the earth).
The acceleration due to gravity is independent of the mass of the object. In a vacuum,
all objects, regardless of mass, accelerate at the same rate.
The magnitude of the acceleration due to gravity is dependent upon the distance of the
object from the center of the earth.
Galileo postulated that all objects would fall with the same constant acceleration in the
absence of air or other resistance.
The velocity and acceleration of an object are not necessarily in the same direction.
When a ball is thrown upward, its velocity is positive (upward), but its acceleration is
downward (negative). At its highest point, a ball thrown upward has a velocity of zero.
2
Its acceleration is still -9.8 m/𝑠
In physics, the relationship between variables is examined graphically.
If you wanted to experimentally determine the acceleration of an object, you would
collect distance and time data.

If for each time interval, the distance that the object travels is changing, the object is
accelerating. From this data, you would determine the instantaneous velocity of the
object at each instant of time. Since your velocity depends upon the elapsed time,
velocity (dependent variable) is graphed on the y-axis and time (dependent variable) is
graphed on the x-axis.

The slope of the line gives the acceleration of the object. On a velocity vs time graph, a
line of constant slope indicates that the object has uniform (constant) acceleration. A
horizontal line (a slope of zero) indicates that the object has zero acceleration and is
moving at constant velocity.

On a graph, if a line has positive slope, we say that the object has positive acceleration;
if the line has negative slope, we say that the line has negative acceleration. On a v vs t
graph, you can mathematically write the equation for the motion of the object knowing
the slope and the y-intercept.

Remember, the equation of a line is y = mx + b, where m is the slope and b is the


y-intercept. The total displacement between any two times on a velocity vs time graph is
equal to the area under the curve between the two times. In other words, since d = vt,
the area under the curve represents the distance traveled.

If your "curve" in question is a "rectangle," the distance traveled is found by multiplying


the time interval by the velocity interval (since the area of a rectangle is found by
multiplying the width by the length). If your "curve" looks like a "triangle," the distance
traveled is found by multiplying the time interval by the velocity interval by one-half
(since the area of a rectangle is found by 1/2 base x heigth).

Or, you can find the average velocity and multiply it by the time interval to find the
distance traveled.

The area under an acceleration vs. time graph represents the change in velocity. If your
"curve" in question is a "rectangle," the change in velocity is found by multiplying the
time interval by the acceleration interval (since the area of a rectangle is found by
multiplying the width by the length).
If your "curve" looks like a "triangle," the change in velocity is found by multiplying the
time interval by the acceleration interval by one-half (since the area of a rectangle is
found by 1/2 base x height).

Or, you can find the average acceleration and multiply it by the time interval to find the
change in velocity. If the object's initial velocity is zero, the change in velocity would be
equivalent to the final velocity.

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