heedm, I basically agree with your comments that "tension" forces produce "stored" kenetic energy. You mentioned heating and cooling gases, liquids, and solids as examples of storing (and releasing) this energy.
However there's also "stored" kenetic energy in mechanical processes that involve "tension" forces(you mentioned leaning against the wall), but this would include the rubber band, springs, bending the 2x4, lifting a hammer, and a host of other examples.
On the face of it, this also appears to be the case in the centripetal/centrifugal example. It "appears" as though pulling a moving object into an arc (against the tendency to travel in a straight line), "stores" the energy to return back to straight-line travel, once the centripetal force is released. Again, it seems to "appear" that way.
The fundamental difficulty that I have with "seeing" an object moving around in an arc as being under constant acceleration, in that there appears to be no energy being applied to the object in motion. Granted the "torque" force (rotational acceleration) speeds up or slows down a rotating system, but in a constant speed system, what energy in being transferred to the system to cause "continual acceleration" of the moving object around the arc? I just can't see the "acceleration" in this. How can there be "continual acceleration" of the object in motion without any momentum changes (assuming constant speed)?
(edited for typos)
[ 24 December 2001: Message edited by: Flight Safety ]</p>