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Physics Lesson 3.11.1 - Acceleration verse Time graph in Uniform motion
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Welcome to our Physics lesson on Acceleration verse Time graph in Uniform motion, this is the first lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Acceleration v's Time Graph, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
Acceleration verse Time graph in Uniform motion
In Uniform Motion, there is no acceleration (a⃗ = 0) as the velocity is constant. Therefore, the acceleration vs time graph will be a straight line extending on the horizontal (time) axis as shown in the figure:
Let's plot all the three motion graphs for a situation involving uniform motion to explain this point. For this, let's use a numerical example.
Example 1
An object moves linearly from A to B at 6 m/s for 5s and then it turns back at A after other 10s. Plot the position vs time, velocity vs time and acceleration vs time graphs for this motion considering the motion in each segment as uniform.
Solution 1
The first thing to do before plotting any graph is to find the missing values. Since AB and BA represent the same distance, the displacements are equal but opposite. Thus,
Thus, the displacement BA⃗ is ∆x⃗BA = -30m. Therefore, the velocity v⃗BA is
The following motion map will help us understand better the situation.
Since the object turns back to its original position (the total displacement is zero), the position vs time graph will be as shown below.
From the information obtained in the first part of the solution, we got v⃗AB = 6 m/s and v⃗BA = -3 m/s. Therefore, the velocity vs time graph will be as shown below
It is obvious the displacement can also be calculated by finding the area under (or above, in the negative part) the velocity vs time graph shown in the figure.
As for the acceleration, it is zero during the entire motion despite the object has changed direction. This is because the object has moved at constant velocity in both intervals. Look at the graph below.
The acceleration during the first five seconds is shown in dark red and during the next 10 seconds it is shown in indigo, although it is zero everywhere.
You have reach the end of Physics lesson 3.11.1 Acceleration verse Time graph in Uniform motion. There are 5 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Acceleration v's Time Graph, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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- Uniform Motion Feedback. Helps other - Leave a rating for this uniform motion (see below)
- Kinematics Physics tutorial: Acceleration v's Time Graph. Read the Acceleration v's Time Graph physics tutorial and build your physics knowledge of Kinematics
- Kinematics Revision Notes: Acceleration v's Time Graph. Print the notes so you can revise the key points covered in the physics tutorial for Acceleration v's Time Graph
- Kinematics Practice Questions: Acceleration v's Time Graph. Test and improve your knowledge of Acceleration v's Time Graph with example questins and answers
- Check your calculations for Kinematics questions with our excellent Kinematics calculators which contain full equations and calculations clearly displayed line by line. See the Kinematics Calculators by iCalculator™ below.
- Continuing learning kinematics - read our next physics tutorial: Motion in Two Dimensions. Projectile Motion
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