Universiti Malaysia Sabah

Faculty of Engineering
Mechanical Engineering HK-08
Course : KM 31401 Lab IV

Title : Vibration Lab (III)

[Centripetal Force Experiment]

Lecturer : Prof. Dr. Abdul Noor @ Yeo Kiam Beng

Student : Chuah Siang Yoong

Matrix No : BK14110092

Batch : 15/16

Date : 17 Mac 2016

 Table of Content

1. Introduction
2. Objective
3. Theory
1. Introduction
Newtons 1st law states that a body will continue in a straight line unless
acted upon by and external force, it also states that if a body is travelling in
a circular path there must be some force pushing or pulling it towards its
centre of rotation. This force t hat is acting toward the centre of rotation is
known as centripetal force.
A centripetal force (from Latin centrum, "center" and petere, "to seek") is
a force that makes a body follow a curved path. Its direction is always orthogonal to the
motion of the body and towards the fixed point of the instantaneous center of curvature of
the path. Isaac Newton described it as "a force by which bodies are drawn or impelled, or
in any way tend, towards a point as to a centre". In Newtonian mechanics, gravity
provides the centripetal force responsible for astronomical orbits.
Centripetal force is the most considered force when comes to observation of a rotary
motion. As mentioned , the force is pointed towards the center of radius of curvature path.
For an instance,consider a swinging mass on a string with fix length. The mass will be
travelling in a curve path and at the same time exerting a centripetal force which is also
the string tension . The mass will leave the tangential straight line if the string breaks.

2. Objective
a) To determine the relationship between the square of rotational speed, 𝑁 2 and the
1
inverse distance of radius ,𝑟 at constant speed control
3. Theory

When an object is moving in a circular motion , the acceleration of the body is separated
into 2 which is the tangential acceleration and the normal acceleration. The acceleration
of the body is stated as below.
⃗⃗⃗
𝑎