Circular Motion Video Lessons

Concept

Problem: A typical laboratory centrifuge rotates at 3800 rpm. Test tubes have to be placed into a centrifuge very carefully because of the very large accelerations.What is the acceleration at the end of a test tube that is 10 cm from the axis of rotation?For comparison, what is the magnitude of the acceleration a test tube would experience if dropped from a height of 1.0 m and stopped in a 1.6-ms-long encounter with a hard floor?

FREE Expert Solution

Centripetal acceleration is expressed as:

$\overline{){{\mathbf{a}}}_{{\mathbf{c}}}{\mathbf{=}}{\mathbf{r}}{{\mathbf{\omega }}}^{{\mathbf{2}}}}$, where r  is the raids of the test tube and ω is the angular speed.

a.

We're using the equation for centripetal acceleration.

Angular acceleration, ω can be expressed as:

ω = 2πf

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Problem Details

A typical laboratory centrifuge rotates at 3800 rpm. Test tubes have to be placed into a centrifuge very carefully because of the very large accelerations.

What is the acceleration at the end of a test tube that is 10 cm from the axis of rotation?

For comparison, what is the magnitude of the acceleration a test tube would experience if dropped from a height of 1.0 m and stopped in a 1.6-ms-long encounter with a hard floor?