Converting velocity, time, and force data into acceleration

Hello, I am working on a project and am running into a problem converting velocity data into acceleration data. I have velocity data from an ADV as well as force data from a ring transducer on a pile in a wave tank experiment. What would be the easiest way to obtain acceleration data to use in later codes (to obtain drag and inertia coefficients). Thank you.

Answer 1

[Laurent]

Assuming that you have a time series of velocity values, you could just calculate the derivative of the velocity by using the command 'diff' and then dividing by the time difference between adjacent velocity values. Is this what you need?

[Anthony]

I think that works, thank you!

Answer 2

[Youssef Khmou]

Like Laurent said, a=diff(v)./diff(t), you compare that result with F/m with m being the mass of the considered system,

[Anthony]

worked really well, thanks!

[Jan]

gradient is more accurate than the divided differences.

[Youssef Khmou]

i never used gradient for velocity, but for 2D fields. i think diff is standard, while gradient needs to adjust the step h to be the same as Ts=1/Fs, as in this demo :

t=0:0.01:10;
v=2*t;
a1=diff(v)./diff(t);
a1(end+1)=a1(end);
a2=gradient(v,0.01);
plot(t,a1,t,a2,'r')
legend('diff(v(t))','\nabla v(t)');

if Ts is not known, its not convenient to use grad, !?