III.

Analysis of Data

When an object moves in a circle with constant speed, the

motion is called uniform circular motion. When a particle moves in
a circular path, both the acceleration and the net force are
directed toward the center of the circle.
The instantaneous acceleration in a uniform circular motion
is always directed toward the center of the circle, thus it is also
called centripetal acceleration. The formula for centripetal
acceleration is given by

ac =

v2
r . The force pulling the object

towards the center of the circle is called the centripetal force. In

general, centripetal force is the cause of circular motion of the
object. It has the formulas

Fc =ma c =

mv 2
=mr w2=m4 2 f 2 r .
r

The first part of the experiment is the determination of

centripetal force (with constant mass and variable radius of
rotation). For every trial, we increased the radius of rotation, r .
From the data obtained from the experiment, it can be observed
that at a constant mass ( m ), increasing the radius will cause an
increase in the period of rotation ( T ). The period of rotation is
inversely proportional to the frequency of rotation based from the
formula

T=

1
f . It can be observed that the effect of increasing

the radius is a decrease in the centripetal force. This can be

proven by the formula

Fc =

mv
r

there Fc is inversely

proportional with r .
Increasing the radius of rotation will cause an increase in
circumference, therefore creating a longer distance to make a
revolution. We can conclude that the radius is inversely
proportional to both frequency and centripetal force.

The second part of the experiment deals with the

determination of centripetal force (with constant radius and
variable mass of rotating body). For every trial, we decreased the
mass of the rotating body. From the data, it can be observed that
decreasing the mass of the rotating body will cause a decrease in
the period of rotation and an increase in the frequency.
Decreasing the mass of the rotating body will cause a decrease in
the centripetal force. This proves that the mass of the rotating
body is directly proportional to the centripetal force.

The last part of the experiment is determination of mass of

rotating body (with variable force). For every trial we increased
the centripetal force by increasing the mass of pan. From the
results of the experiment, we can see that by increasing the
centripetal force, the period of rotation will decrease.
When the radius and mass are held constant, if the
frequency of rotation will increase and the centripetal force is also
expected to increase. From the formula
directly proportional to frequency.

Fc =m 4 m r ,

Fc

is

IV. Conclusion

Uniform circular motion describes the motion of an object

traveling on a circular path at constant speed. The centripetal
force is defined as a force which keeps the object moving with a
uniform speed along a circular path and is directed along the
radius towards the center.
From the results of the experiment we can conclude that the
centripetal force is directly proportional to the mass but is
inversely proportional to the radius.
The radius of rotation changes the period of rotation also
changes as well as the frequency of rotation. When the mass of
the rotating body is held constant, we can observe that

Fc

is

inversely proportional with r .

Frequency is dependent on the mass of rotating body. When
the radius is constant,

Fc

is directly proportional with m .