Physlet Illustration: Angular Acceleration

 

 

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Starting from rest, a wheel turns with constant angular acceleration. Its instantaneous angular velocity, omega, is shown in radians/sec. Determine the angular acceleration, alpha, in radians/s2.

Hints:

  1. Choose a specific time interval, and determine the angular velocity at the beginning and end of that interval.
  2. Divide the change in angular velocity by the time it took to make that change.

Reference

See Walker, Section 10-1

Illustration written by Steve Mellema