Question

An object moves along a circular path with constant speed. What is the nature of its acceleration?

Answer 1

Explanation:

acceleration will be 0 because total displacement will be 0 .

Answer 2

Given:

An object moves along a circular path with constant speed.

To find:

Nature of acceleration.

Solution:

Since the object moves along the circular path with a constant speed we can consider this as a case of UNIFORM CIRCULAR MOTION.

Due to constant speed, the body does not experience any tangential acceleration.

However , the object experiences centripetal acceleration directed radially inwards towards the centre of the circular trajectory.

$\sf{ \therefore \: a_{tangential} = 0 } \: \: and \\ \: \: \: \: \: \: \sf{a_{centripetal} = \frac{ {v}^{2} }{r} }$

So the body experiences only Centripetal acceleration which is constant in magnitude and directed radially inward.