When a body moves in two dimensional motion, its velocity magnitude and direction both may change.
Change in velocity is always due to some acceleration in body, which is caused by an external force.
When a force acts on a body in two dimensional motion, the direction of force is very important in
deciding what changes will happen in the body velocity.
The force component along the tangential
direction to trajectory of body causes the change in magnitude of velocity and the acceleration due to
this is called Tangential Acceleration and the force component which acts along the normal to trajectory
of body causes the change in direction of velocity and acceleration due to this component of force is
called Normal Acceleration which is also termed as Centripetal Acceleration.
To understand it thoroughly, see the videos below –
Based on the understanding of Tangential and Normal Acceleration which are the two rectangular
components of a force, there are many physical situations where these concepts are extremely helpful.
See the examples below to follow the applications of these concepts.