What Is Centripetal Force?
Centripetal force is the net inward force required to keep an object moving along a curved path. For circular motion at speed v on a circle of radius r, Fc = mv2/r = mω2r, directed toward the centre.
Centripetal force is not a new kind of force — it is the role played by an existing force such as tension (ball on a string), gravity (planet in orbit), normal force (banked curve), or static friction (car cornering). On a free-body diagram the inward arrow is one of these labelled forces, not a separately drawn "centripetal force."
Common mistake: writing "centrifugal force" on an inertial-frame diagram. In the rotating frame attached to the moving object, the outward-pointing centrifugal pseudo-force mω2r balances the centripetal force; in the lab frame there is no outward force.
Recent research on this topic from arXiv
Preprints and papers indexed on arXiv.org. Links open the public abstract pages.
- Superfluid Dynamics, Equilibrium Conditions, and Centripetal Forces
Mario Liu · 2022 ·arXiv:2208.09907v4
Thermodynamics of superfluids is revisited, clarifying two points. First, the density and pressure distribution for given equilibrium velocities is obtained, with the finding that counter heat currents give rise to a pressure depression and... - Generalized Centripetal Force Law and Quantization of Motion Constrained on 2D Surfaces
Q. H. Liu · 2016 ·arXiv:1604.05065v1
For a particle moves on a 2D surface f(x)=0 embedded in 3D Euclidean space, the geometric momentum and potential are simultaneously admissible within the Dirac canonical quantization scheme for constrained motion. In our approach, not the f... - Centripetal force on Casimir energies in $κ$-deformed rotating frame
E. Harikumar, K. V. Shajesh, Suman Kumar Panja · 2024 ·arXiv:2407.10605v1
We investigate the implications of a fundamental length scale on the centripetal force on a rotating Casimir apparatus in $κ$-space-time. We model the Casimir apparatus rotating with constant angular speed using appropriate $κ$-deformed coo... - The centripetal force law and the equation of motion for a particle on a curved hypersurface
L. D. Hu, D. K. Lian, Q. H. Liu · 2016 ·arXiv:1606.08221v3
It is pointed out that the current form of extrinsic equation of motion for a particle constrained to remain on a hypersurface is in fact a half-finished version for it is established without regard to the fact that the particle can never d...