what is centripetal acceleration?

Answer 1

The above guy has gone crazy!!!!
He is equating force to acceleration.

consider body performing a circular motion.
Let m be its mass.

The body experiences a force acting radially towards its centre.

This force is centripetal force.this is the necessary force for any body to perform circular motion.

This force causes the velocity of body to change direction though it remains same in magnitude.

As vector velocity changes, this force must be causing some acceleration in the body.
This acceleration due to centripetal force is known as centripetal acceleration.

Answer 2

Curves are an essential part of a roller coaster, and centripetal acceleration is part of moving in a circular path. Therefore, centripetal acceleration is also an essential part of a roller coaster.



Centripetal acceleration points toward the center of the circular path of the train, but is felt by passengers as a force pushing them to the outer edge of the circular path. This feeling is often described as centrifugal force, although there is no actual force pushing or pulling passengers away from the circle. The “centrifugal force” is actually your body’s inertia, or its resistance to the train’s change in direction: your body wants to continue in a straight line and attempts to do so as the train turns. Luckily, your body is strapped into the roller coaster train, otherwise your body would continue in the straight path that the train was following before it entered the curve.



The equation for centripetal acceleration is:

ar = v2 / r

Where ar is centripetal acceleration, v is velocity in meters per second, and r is the radius of the circle in meters. This means that the higher the train’s velocity, the greater the centripetal acceleration. This also means that the smaller the curve of the path being traveled, the greater the centripetal acceleration. Because of this, many high-speed roller coasters use banked turns rather than the flat ones that are safe for slower speeds. Banking the turns in a roller coaster gives you the feeling of being pushed into your seat rather than being thrown to the side of the car.

Answer 3

The centripetal acceleration is the force opposed to the centrifuge force: it is the force that "pulls" an object towards a center, making it to move in a "circle" (or some form of orbit).
The Sun attracts the Earth: that is the centripetal force.
As a result, the Earth runs around the Sun (nearer to a circle, but it is an ellipse). The rotation of Earth around the Sun tends to push the Earth away from the Sun: that is the Centrifuge force.
Both are equal in value, opposed in direction.
The value is F=m x omega² x r, where m is the mass of the object, omega is the angular speed in radians, and r the radius of the circle.

Answer 4

We know velocity is having both magnitude and direction.

When the body is circular motion with constant speed, velocity at each point is different, because at each point the direction of the velocity which is along the tangent at the point is changing.

Acceleration is rate of change in velocity.

The acceleration that makes the direction of velocity to change at each point on circular motion is called centripetal acceleration.

In order to change the direction alone with out changing the magnitude, the acceleration must be perpendicular to the direction of velocity.

That is it must point toward the center of the circular path.

Hence it is called centripetal (meaning toward the center) acceleration.