Question

Does the direction of acceleration at various points during the oscillation of a simple pendulum remain towards mean position ?

Answer 1

At the mean position (vertical) the pendulum only has radial

acceleration.

At other points on the trajectory the pendulum has both radial

and tangential acceleration which must be added vectorially to

give the net acceleration. Also, at the end points of the motion the

acceleration must be only tangential since the velocity of the pendulum

is zero.