Hi!could anyone help me please, I don't get it. Thank you so much for your help.

Question:(a) What is the tangential acceleration of a bug on the rim of a 9.0 in. diameter disk if the disk moves from rest to an angular speed of 79 rev/min in 4.0 s?
___m/s2

(b) When the disk is at its final speed, what is the tangential velocity of the bug?
___ m/s

(c) One second after the bug starts from rest, what is its tangential acceleration?

___ m/s2
What is its centripetal acceleration?
___ m/s2
What is its total acceleration?
___m/s2
___° (relative to the tangential acceleration)

1 answer

(a) First of all, convert 79 rpm to radians per second, which we will call w.
w = 79 rev/min* (2 pi rad/rev) * (1 min/60s) = 8.27 rad/s
Divide that final angular velocity by 4 seconds to obtain the angular acceleration. Call that number "alpha"
alpha = (8.27 rad/s)/4.0s = 2.07 rad/s^2
The tangential acceleration of the bug
while the disk is speeding up is
a_t = alpha*R
where R = 4.5 in/39.37 in/meter = 0.1143 m. Therefore
a_t = 0.236 m/s^2

b) The tangential velocity at full speed is v_t = R*w

c) same tangential acceleration as (a)

centripetal acceleration @ t=1 s is
a_c (@ t=1) = R w^2, where w is 1/4 of the value calculated in (a), since you are only 1/4 way through the acceleration interval.

For the total acceleration at t=1 s, use
a = sqrt[a_t^2 + a_c^2]

The tangent of the total acceleration vector relative to tangential direction is (a_c)/(a_t)

Thise are the formulas to use. You do the numbers and try to undertand where the formulas came from. Check my work as well. No guarantees.