Average Velocity 0

To describe object's motion we have a parameter called velocity which gives both the direction and speed of the
object's motion.
In this section we will discuss average velocity in detail.

Average Velocity Definition Back to Top

The word average in a broad sense means, the ratio of the sum of quantities to the total number of quantities . The
same concept applies to average velocity, which means the mean of all the velocities. Before that, let us understand
what a velocity is and also speed.

Speed of an object is its rate of change of its distance with respect to time without any reference to
the direction it moves.
Velocity is nothing but the speed defined with the direction an object travels.

Later, we will discuss in detail about the difference between a speed and a velocity.
Coming back to the average velocity, the definition for the same is the ratio of the displacement of an object to the
time it had taken to cover that displacement. It may be noted that we use the term displacement instead of distance
to emphasize the direction.

Algebraically an average velocity is defined as,

v = dt

where, d is the displacement and t is the time taken for that displacement.

For a short interval of time, we calculate the average velocity as follows.

where, y 0 is position of an object at time t and (y o + Δy) is its position in the same direction after an increase of
time by Δt .

dy
When we take the limit as Δt → 0 , then it becomes , the average velocity turns into instantaneous velocity at
dt
time t.

When an object undergoes change in velocities at different instances, the average velocity is given by the sum of the
velocities at different instances divided by the number of instances. That is, if an object has different velocities V1, V2,
V3,…….. Vn, at times t = t1, t2, t3,…….. tn, then the average velocity is given by,

[V1 +V2 +V3 ......+ Vn ]

Average Speed vs Average Velocity Back to Top

In the previous section, we briefly explained the difference between speed and velocity. Speed is a scalar quantity
whereas velocity is a vector quantity.

If you just say that a car is running at 60 miles per hour, it refers only to its speed because it does not say anything
about its direction. But when you say that a car is running at 60 miles per hour along east, it refers to its velocity
now. Since time is always a scalar quantity, the direction of the distance (displacement) decides the rate as velocity.
Let us illustrate the difference with an example.

Suppose a car is traveling towards east at a speed of 60 miles per hour for 2 hours and at the same speed for one
hour but now towards the direction of west, that is towards the opposite direction to earlier.
The total distance traveled is 60 × 2 + 60 × 1 = 180 miles and the total time taken is 3 hours. Therefore, the average
180
speed is = 60 miles per hour. But when you calculate the displacement of the car, the net displacement is
3
60
60*2 - 60*1 = 60 miles towards east. Therefore, the average velocity is = 20 miles per hour towards east.
3

From the above, one may easily conclude that the average velocity will never be greater
than the average speed.

Average Velocity Formula Back to Top

The average velocity equation or the average velocity formula is,

Algebraically,

d
Vav = ,
t

where,
d is the net displacement and t is the total time taken for that displacement.
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Finding Average Velocity Back to Top

First we need to calculate the net displacement of an object for the entire motion to find the average velocity. The
initial direction of movement of the object is normally taken as reference direction. The following diagram will make
the concept clearer.

Suppose a particle travels a distance d1 in a time t1, d2 in a time t2, and d3 in a time t3, as shown above. It may be
noted that the distances traveled are not in the same directions. The total distance is d1 + d2 + d3, but it is not the
net displacement. The net displacement is the projections of d2 and d3, in the direction of d1, are d2 + d3 and hence
the net displacement is d1 + d2 + d3. Therefore, in the above case the average velocity is found as,

[d 1 + d 2 + d 3 ]
Vav =
[t 1 + t 2 + t 3 ]

and in general,

[d 1 +d 2 +.....+d n ]
Vav = .
[t 1 +t 2 +.....+t n ]

It may be noted that at any time, if the velocity is in the direction of an obtuse angle to the reference direction then
the projection of that particular velocity will be negative.

Magnitude of Average Velocity Back to Top

Since we have defined an average velocity as a vector quantity, it has both magnitude and direction. When the
direction is ignored, the datum of the average velocity is the magnitude of average velocity. But remember, when
calculating an average velocity, where a data of velocities have been given for different time intervals, you need to
ignore the direction only at the final stage and not while computation.

Let us recall the formula we derived for finding average velocity in the last section.

In case of an object having n number of velocities in n number of time intervals, the magnitude of the average velocity
is given by,
[d 1 +d 2 +.....+d n ]
Magnitude of Vav =
[t 1 +t 2 +.....+t n ]
Average Angular Velocity Back to Top

We have been discussing so far about the average velocities in case of linear motions, i.e., objects moving away from
or towards a reference point. But circular motion is also equally important. In circular motion, an object rotates on a
circular path around a fixed point. Most glaring example is rotation of wheels.

In case of circular motion the velocity involved is called angular velocity. An angular velocity is measured in terms of
the angle covered by the object per unit time. Normally, an angular velocity is denoted by the Greek letter ω. The
direction of angular velocity is limited to clock wise direction or counter clock wise direction. In absence of the
direction, the datum is referred as angular speed.

Hence the definition of average angular velocity is,

θ
ω= t ,
where θ is the angle rotated in the time t

In case of angular velocity, there are only two possible directions, the computation of average velocity is simpler. It is
either positive or negative. As a convention, counter clock wise direction is considered as positive and the clock wise
direction as negative. The basic unit of angular velocity is radians per unit time, mostly, radians per second. But in
practice and in commercial language an angular velocity is better described asRPM (revolutions per minute). It may
be kept in mind that one revolution means covering an angle of 2π radians.
In this case also, when different angular velocities occur at different times, the average angular velocity is found by the
formula

[θ1 +θ2 +.....+θn ]