Coriolis Acceleration

Alpha Omega Engineering, Inc.
872 Toro Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 (805) 541 8608 (home office), (805) 441 3995 (cell)
Coriolis acceleration
by Frank Owen, PhD, P.E., www.aoengr.com
All rights reserved
By derivation of the five-term acceleration equation with a spinning and translating reference frame, we
see that there are two terms that appear when an object moves inside this rotating frame. One of these
is Coriolis acceleration, which was not well known until long after Newton worked out his three laws and
Euler applied them to rigid bodies. The Coriolis term is

= 2
How this term arises mathematically when there is movement in a rotating frame is the topic of another
article (see www.aoengr.com/Dynamics/RotatingReferenceFrame.pdf). This article explains Coriolis
acceleration from a more pragmatic standpoint, to allow you to develop your intuition a bit regarding
this non-intuitive concept.
First note that the components of Coriolis acceleration involve only two velocities: 1) the rotational
velocity of the rotating frame, usually attached to a rotating body, and 2) the velocity of an object within
this rotating frame. A simple case would be a rotating rod with a collar moving along the rod as shown
in the figure below. Thus, like normal acceleration, Coriolis acceleration results from velocity.
Rotating rod with sliding collar

To explain Coriolis and give some examples of how it manifests itself, Id like to avail myself of a scenario
that was used to explain Coriolis to me, when I was studying engineering in Mississippi in the middle
1970s. This is a cockroach walking on a vinyl LP record as shown in the figure below.
Page 1 of 6
Cockroach walking out on a rotating LP platter

Lets consider the simple situation where the rotational speed is constant and the cockroachs
walking velocity is also constant. Obviously as the cockroach walks outward, his distance from the
center of rotation increases, and therefore his velocity due to the rotation increases. Lets look at this in
detail.
The figure below shows the cockroach at an instant in time ( t ) and then at another instant shortly
thereafter ( t+t ). The disk has turned through a small angle , and the cockroach has moved out a
tiny amount x. At t the tangential velocity v is * x At t+t , because of the increased radius, the
tangential velocity vtan has increased to *(x+x) This increase in vtan is part of the Coriolis
acceleration.
Cockroachs path and tangential speed after a short interval
Page 2 of 6
Thus
=
( + ) () (x + x) x
=
=
=
If we make t ever shorter and, thus, ever smaller, we can see that the direction of this
acceleration is tangential, i.e. in the y-direction. Thus
=
There is another change that must also be taken into account. A vector can change in time by increasing
or decreasing in magnitude but also by changing direction. The cockroachs velocity on the disk has
changed direction in this instant, though, for this case, the velocity is constant. The figure below shows
a close-up of this change, with the two vectors placed tail-to-tail.
Change in vxs direction

As we make t and ever smaller, vxs length approaches that of the arc length of the rotated
vector. Thus
=
The acceleration due to this effect is thus
=

=
=
exactly the same result as before, due to the increase in tangential velocity. It is also easy to see that
with a very small , the direction of this acceleration is exactly the same as that of , that is in
the y-direction. Thus
=
The total Coriolis acceleration is thus the combination of these two effects.
= + = 2
Note that this is precisely the same as the cross product that results from deriving the five-term
acceleration equation.

= 2
Page 3 of 6
This equation is more general because we are not constraining the cockroach just to walk on a straight
path along the x-axis. The same type of analysis could be done for any random path with the same
result.
One thing interesting about Coriolis acceleration that is shown by the cross product is this: If the disk is
= , the Coriolis acceleration is always directed to the left of
rotating counter-clockwise, so that
the path taken by the cockroach. With clockwise rotation, Coriolis acceleration is 90 to the right of the
path.
Some interesting cases
At left the cockroach has turned and is walking in a circular
path around the platter. With this, his tangential speed
will increase by vxy from what it would be due to alone.
That is
= +
If a light were put on the bugs back and the lights were
turned out, one would simply see the cockroach circling a
central point with a tangential speed vtan . His absolute
rotational velocity would be = . As can be seen,
and are aligned and point from the cockroach

toward point O . These, then, added together, should
produce the normal acceleration that one would get using
instead to calculate it.
Cockroach walking on circular path in

direction of rotation
That is,
+ = 2 + 2
But just considering the motion of the bug alone
2
2
( + )
=(
) =
= 2 + 2 +
Thus, it looks as if there is a discrepancy between the two calculations, since the latter one includes the
2 / . Where does this term come from? The answer is found by considering what the
extra term
bugs acceleration would be, walking on his circular path when = 0 . His normal acceleration on a non2 / . Thus
spinning disk would be precisely
+ does not include the local acceleration,
2
= / due simply to the cockroachs walking a circular path.
Page 4 of 6
At right is shown the case where the cockroach walks a

straight path across the disk from A to B to C , but it
does not pass through the center of the disk. From the
vector expression for ,

= 2
nothing has changed. For this case, with a straight path
= , the
parallel with the x-axis, = . Since
cross produce yields a vector
= 2 = 2
As stated in the last paragraph of the section above, with
counter-clockwise rotation, is always just 90 to the
nor change
left of the path. Notice that neither
for any point on the path.
Cockroach walking on offset path
It is a mistake to think that Coriolis acceleration always is directed tangentially. This can be seen clearly
in this case. At B in fact the Coriolis acceleration is directed normally, toward the center of rotation of
the disk. The Coriolis acceleration is thus only tangentially directed when the cockroachs path passes
through the center of rotation. For some random path, as shown below, the Coriolis acceleration is
always directed to the left of the path. The path does not even have to be straight. The Coriolis
acceleration is always normal to the path, to the left if the rotation is counter-clockwise, because of the
cross product.
Random paths on spinning disk

It is interesting to compare the two cases, already presented, shown in the figure below. Let vx = vxy ,
that is, in both cases the cockroach is walking at the same pace. The acceleration at B in the left-hand
drawing is
+ = 2 + 2
Page 5 of 6
Comparison of accelerations on a straight path and a circular path

The acceleration in the right-hand drawing is instead
+ + = 2 + 2 +
Whats interesting about this is that at B , the tangential velocity of the cockroach in both cases is the
same. But the difference between the two can be seen in the case of a non-spinning disk. Even with no
rotation, the cockroach on the right-hand disk experiences an acceleration toward point O , because of
his circular path. The cockroach on the left-hand disk, on the other hand, would experience no
acceleration, were = 0.
Page 6 of 6

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Alpha Omega Engineering, Inc.

Rotating rod with sliding collar

Cockroach walking out on a rotating LP platter

Cockroachs path and tangential speed after a short interval

Change in vxs direction

rotational velocity would be = . As can be seen,

and are aligned and point from the cockroach

Cockroach walking on circular path in

At right is shown the case where the cockroach walks a

Cockroach walking on offset path

Random paths on spinning disk

Comparison of accelerations on a straight path and a circular path

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