Uniformly Accelerated Motion You must have seen the start of a car race where the cars screech

to a high speed from rest in a few seconds. The process is called acceleration. Acceleration happens when cars move off from rest, when buses slow down, when things fall to the ground. When a steady unbalanced force is applied to a body, it causes it to accelerate uniformly. The following short animation describes a steady acceleration. The track that follows the animation is typical of such motions.

As before, successive dots on the track are made at equal time intervals, in this case 0.10 s. Thus the time interval for AB is the same as the time interval for EF that is the same as the time interval for GH. Notice that, as the body moves from left to right, the distance travelled by the body in a fixed time interval increases. This suggests that the speed of the body increases as time passes. Obviously the motion of the body along CD is slower than the body's motion along GH. Just like before, the track data above may be represented in tabular form as follows. As usual, the independent variable (here it is time) is entered in the left column. t (s) d (cm) We can convert the table to a d-t graph as before. The following results: 0A=0 0.10 AB = 1.0 0.20 AC = 4.0 0.30 AD = 9.0 0.40 AE = 16.0 0.50 AF = 25.0

When the acceleration is steady, the curve is a parabola as it is in this graph. Note that, with parabolas, the slope of the line increases as time advances (the line gets steeper). This means that, as time progresses, the distance travelled increases even more in each equal time interval. In other words, as time progresses, the speed of the body increases. [There is another situation where a body accelerates without changing its speed. Acceleration also involves a body changing its direction of motion. We will look at this later.] Calculating Speed from a Distance-Time Graph This time there are two options. Imagine you drive a car between two points, A and B. If you want to figure out the cars average speed, all you need to know is how far it went and how long it took to cover this distance. This involves the equation used in the last module, speed = distance/time or v = d/t. The equation of average speed may be written: Average speed = vav = d/t = (d2 - d1)/(t2 - t1) In words this can be stated: average speed = (total distance travelled in the trip) / (time taken for the trip) If, however, you wish to know the speed of the car at a specific instant during its trip, the average speed will be of little help. You could, of course, look at the car's speedometer at the specific instant in question. The speed of the car at a specific instant of time is called the car's instantaneous speed. It is time to look at how we find both average speed and the instantaneous speed.

The Average Speed Suppose you have already obtained a body's distance-time graph. Two points can be selected on the graph and the slope between them determined. This generates a value called the average speed, vav.

vav =

= (d2 - d1) / (t2 - t1)

NOTE: The average speed is the steady speed that the body would have to move with to cover the same distance in the same time.

Ref:

http://www.tutorvista.com/content/physics/physics-iii/kinematics/accelerated-motion-relations.php

http://www.tutorvista.com/content/physics/physics-iii/kinematics/uniformly-accelerated-motion.php www1.uprh.edu/labfisi/Labs3013en/acceleratemotion.pdf www.asu.edu%2Fcourses%2Fkin335%2Fdocuments%2FProjectile%2520Motion.pdf

http://equalrightsforall.net/online_tutorial/classical_mechanics/Rectilinear_Motion/Graphing_Motion/002_Accelgraf.ht m

Uniformly Accelerated Motion (Graphical Treatment)

The velocity-time graph for uniformly accelerated rectilinear motion (motion along a straight line), a > 0, is illustrated in the figure. The velocity-time graph for a uniformly retarded motion is as shown in the figure. Here a < 0, indicating retardation or deceleration. In this section, we are going to derive the velocity-time relation for a particle moving with constant acceleration.

The figure above illustrates a particle moving with constant acceleration 'a' along the positive direction of X-axis. If v (t1) and v (t2) be the velocities of the particle at times t1and t2 respectively, then

Acceleration, Cross-multiplying, we have, v (t2) - v (t1) = a (t2 - t1) v (t2) = v (t1) + a (t2 - t1)

according to the definition

If the motion is considered from t = 0, then the corresponding velocity v(0) at t = 0 is called the initial velocity and the velocity after a time interval, say t, is called the final velocity and denoted by v(t). In this case, the acceleration is given by

or at = v (t) - v (0) v(t) = v (0) + at The above expression represents the first equation of motion. The figure below illustrates the velocity-time graph AB of a uniformly accelerated particle. The points A and B correspond to velocities v (0) and v (t) respectively.

Slope of the straight line AB

Also, from the definition of acceleration, we know that

We conclude that the slope of the velocity-time graph for uniformly accelerated motion gives the acceleration. At any given time, the direction of motion is given by velocity and not by acceleration. As an example, when a ball is thrown up vertically, its velocity is directed upwards at any given time, but its acceleration is always directed in the downward direction.

Whenever an object's velocity changes, the object is said to be accelerating. If the acceleration occurs while the object is moving in a straight line, then we say that the object is experiencing rectilinear acceleration. An example of this type of acceleration occurs whenever an automaker brags that his vehicle can go from 0-60 mph is "x-number" of seconds. He is assuming that you understand that the car is merely gaining speed, not randomly changing speed in a number of different random directions. When a velocity-time graph lies in the 1st quadrant, the object is traveling in a positive direction. If the line slopes away from the x- or time axis, it is gaining speed; if it slopes towards the x- or time axis, it is losing speed.

gaining speed + acceleration

losing speed - acceleration

constant speed 0 acceleration

If the velocity-time graph lies in the 4th quadrant, then the object is losing or gaining speed in a negative direction.

gaining speed - acceleration

losing speed + acceleration

constant speed 0 acceleration

Notice that graphically, the acceleration is calculated as the slope of each velocity-time graph. The graph's slope which equals y/ x can just as easily be expressed as v/t, or acceleration. But be careful! Notice that a positive acceleration does NOT always mean that the object is gaining speed. You cannot forget that acceleration is a vector quantity that represents the change in velocity, another vector quantity. Since vectors have two attributes: magnitude and direction, you can use the rules for signed numbers to remember which combinations result in either a positive or a negative acceleration. gaining speed (+) in a positive (+) direction gaining speed (+) in a negative (-) direction losing speed (-) in a positive (+) direction losing speed (-) in a negative (-) direction + acceleration - acceleration - acceleration + acceleration

The area bounded by the velocity-graph and the nearest x- or time axis tells you the object's displacement during a specified time interval. As stated before, whenever the graph is in the 1st quadrant, the object is moving in a positive direction and its area represents a positive displacement. Conversely, whenever the graph is in the 4th quadrant, the object is moving in a negative direction and its area represents a negative displacement. During our study, these areas will either be rectangles, triangles, or a combination of triangles and rectangles. You will have the opportunity to practice calculating areas (or displacements) in the following problem.

Let's look at an example to test our understanding of these properties of velocity-time graphs. Refer to the following information for the next four questions.