The Physics of a Tire Swing




A tire swing work a bit like a regular swing, except more complicated.  Now we are going to introduce new forces that have to do with the spinning path that a tire swing takes.  Once a force is applied, centripetal force (the force required to keep a body moving in a circular path) and centripetal acceleration (the acceleration of a body moving in a circular path) cause the tire to spin in a circular motion.   


Uniform Circular Motion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Uniform_motion_in_circle.svg
Now, if the tire swing traveled in a uniform circular path, you would move in a circle and the velocity would be tangent to the orbit as the blue circle shows.  The red circle shows that acceleration is radially inward.


NonUniform Circular Motion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nonuniform_circular_motion.svg


A tire swing moves more in a nonuniform circular motion, where the velocity is tangential to the orbit and the acceleration is not radially inward and the tangential component increases the rate of rotation.


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