A sock stuck to the side of a clothes-dryer barrel has a centripetal acceleration of 28 m/s2.

Question

A sock stuck to the side of a clothes-dryer barrel has a centripetal acceleration of 28 m/s2. If the dryer barrel has a radius of 27.6 cm, what is the tangential speed of the sock?

 

Can you help me with the problem and tell me the formula for centripetal acceleration please.

Answer 1

Centripetal acceleration is given by

a_c = v_t²/r

So rearrange that to find v_t tangential velocity.

v_t = √(a_c r)

And you know the centripetal acceleration and the radius.

Don't forget to convert the radius into metres.