Chapter 4

Curvilinear motion. Circular motion.

Velocity of curvilinear motion

In case of curvilinear motion the trajectory is a curved line. The first step we should do is to
determine velocity. Of course, here we deal with instantaneous velocity written by vectors which
is
s
v  ; t  0 (4.1)
t
the velocity at a given instant or at a given point of the trajectory. Let’s find its direction.

If at time t the displacement of the body is s  MM 1 (Fig. 1a) and if t tends to zero then
point M 1 approaches to M and the direction of ratio s / t will is directed along tangent to the
trajectory at point M which is, of course, velocity at this point. So we can state that instantaneous
velocity is directed along the tangent of trajectory at any point. Examples are given in Fig. 1b.
Magnitude of velocity here is also path
distance travelled per unit time.
If we know the velocity to find displacement
we should
1) Divide all the time into very small intervals
of time t1 , t2 , , tn .
2) Find displacement in these time intervals
by the formula s  v 1t1 .
3) To sum all displacements made in these
time intervals to find the total displacement Fig. 2. So we have
s  s1  s2   sn  v 1t1  v 2t2   v n tn
With the same method we can find distance using velocity magnitude
l  l1  l2   ln  v 1t1  v 2t2   v n tn
When we have uniform curvilinear motion i.e. v  v  const , velocity magnitude is constant,
then we get an obvious result
l  v t1 v t2  v tn  v  t1  t2   tn   v t
Acceleration: As with velocity here also we have to define instantaneous acceleration which is the
ratio
v
a
t
when t  0 approaches zero.

In Fig. 2 a body moves along a curve. In time t the body passes from point M to point M 1 . Of
course, velocities are directed along tangent at these points. To find the change of velocity we
bring the velocity vector v  t  t  from point M 1 to point M and then find the difference v
which has the same direction as acceleration. When M1  M i.e. t  0 acceleration at point
M will make up some angle  with velocity and will be directed inside the curve. Now it is
convenient to decompose acceleration vector into two components, one along the velocity or
tangent, and the other perpendicular to velocity, and write
a  an  at (4.2)

Velocity can change due to change of magnitude and direction. at is called tangential acceleration
and describes the change of velocity magnitude. an is called normal or centripetal acceleration
and describes the change of velocity direction. Magnitude of tangential acceleration is found by
at = v / t; t  0 i.e. the rate of change of velocity magnitude. How to find magnitude of
centripetal acceleration we will find out later.
Let us consider some cases:
 When velocity magnitude increases v 2  v 1 then tangential acceleration and velocity have
the same direction and it means that angle  is acute (Fig. 4a).
 When velocity magnitude decreases v 2 < v 1 then tangential acceleration and velocity have
opposite directions, so angle  is obtuse (Fig. 4b).
 When velocity magnitude remains the same v 2  v 1 then tangential acceleration is zero so
there is only normal acceleration and the angle  is a right angle (Fig. 4c).

Now it is obvious that if centripetal acceleration is equal zero then we have straight-linear motion.
When tangential acceleration is zero then we have uniform curvilinear motion and the simplest
trajectory is circle which we consider now.

Uniform circular motion

The most important curve, perhaps, is a circle. If we have a general curvilinear motion any little
part of trajectory can be replaced by a proper circle (with proper radius) (Fig. 5).

Now, trajectory of uniform circular motion is a circle which is passed by a body with constant
speed, i.e. v  const or v  const . Suppose that at t  0 instant the body is at point A (Fig. 6) and
moves anticlockwise. The distance is measured from point B. It is known in mathematics that the
central angle  is equal to the ratio of arc and radius of the circle so
l l0  v t l0 v t
   
R R R R
Denoting v / R   and noting that l0 / R  0 is the initial angle we can write
  0  t (4.3)
Let us find out physical meaning of  . From (4.3) we have
   0
 (4.4)
t
so it the change of central angle in unit time and is called angular velocity. Its unit is
  rad
    1
t  s
(angles are measured by radians).
Knowing angular velocity we can find the linear velocity or simply velocity by

v  R (4.5)

which is, of course, directed along the tangent to the circle.

Period of rotation: The time in which one full rotation is made is called period of rotation. It is
denoted by capital T . If in time t the number of rotations is N period will be
t
T
N
Putting in (4.4)   0    2 and t  T we find that
2
 (4.6)
T
and velocity is from (4.5)
2 R
v  (4.7)
T
which is circumference over the time as expected.
Frequency: The number of rotations per unit time is called frequency   . It is easy to see that
frequency is simply inverse of period, so
N 1
  (4.8)
t T
Velocity is related with frequency by
v  2 R (4.9)
Frequency is measured by 1/ s  s 1 or Hz .
 Centripetal acceleration
As we mentioned above acceleration in curvilinear uniform motion is perpendicular to velocity at
any point of trajectory (Fig. 7a). In circular motion this in turn means that acceleration is directed
toward the center of the circle so we call it centripetal acceleration. To find it consider Figure 7b.
At very small time t the distance along tangent will be AK  v t and along the radius is
AC  an  t  / 2 . Using Pythagorean theorem for triangle OBC we get OB 2  OC 2  BC 2 or
2

 
2
R 2  R  an  t  / 2  v t  . After opening the brackets and cancelling by  t  we will get
2 2 2

v 2  Ran  an  t  / 4  0
2

and finally when t  0 we obtain

v2
an  (4.10)
R
This is the formula we were looking for. Now using (4.5) we have

an   2 R (4.11)
Other form we will get by putting (4.6) into (4.11) so
4 2 R
an  2
 4 2 R 2 (4.12)
T
in which centripetal acceleration is expressed by period or frequency.

Suppose that we have a rotating disk as shown in Fig. 8.

First of all we note that angular velocity  , period T and
frequency  are the same along the whole disc since, for
example, at time equal to the period all the points of the
disk make rotation by angle 2 . Using formula (4.5) we can
see that velocity of point increases with radius by linear
law. In a similar way from formula (4.11) we see that
centripetal acceleration is also increases linearly with
radius.

Now let us return to the figure 5. Formula (4.10) shows that centripetal acceleration depends on
velocity and radius which is a geometric characteristic of a line. So if magnitude of velocity is
constant than the less radius the greater normal acceleration. In Fig. 5 centripetal acceleration is
the greatest in the most curved part LK (curvature radius is the least).