# Centripetal and tangential acceleration

1. Jun 3, 2005

### nutster

Can someone help me make sense of this problem?

Thanks.

A race car, starting from rest, travels around a circular turn of radius 23.7 m. At a certain instant, the car is still accelerating, and its angular speed is 0.571 rad/s. At this time, the total acceleration (centripetal plus tangential) makes an angle of 35.0° with respect to the radius. (The situation is similar to that in Figure 8.15b.) What is the magnitude of the total acceleration?

2. Jun 3, 2005

### Pyrrhus

You know.

$$|\vec{a}|^{2} = a_{radial}^{2} + a_{tangential}^{2}$$

and

$$v = R \omega$$

With the angular speed and the radius you can calculate the radial acceleration, and with the angle information, you can calulate the modulus or magnitude of the acceleration, and if you want to the tangential acceleration...

3. Jun 3, 2005

### nutster

Sorry, I was out of class for most of this week, so that doesn't make a lot of sense. Can you lay it out in equations?

4. Jun 3, 2005

### siddharth

If you missed class and did not understand the concepts, I strongly advise you take a good book like Resnick and Halliday and read the theory.