Physics 2CL

Lecture 2

"I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done." --Henry Ford

Lecture 1 Resistors; errors; propagation of errors Background for Lab 01 (week 2 this week) Lecture 2 Capacitance Background for Lab 02 (week 3 next week) No lecture on Monday, week 3 (University Holiday) Address questions about Lab to Andrew Briggs, Lab TA Coordinator (LTAC): Discussion Board on TED, or email (see Syllabus) For Lab 01 (week 2): Read Lab 01 writeup (TED) Read Chapters 1 and 2 of Taylor Turn in Homework 1 (TED) Reading quiz (lab writeup, text, lecture) Academic Integrity Policy (TED)

Remarks

What is capacitance?

Capacitance

Capacitance is the ability to hold charge. The more capacitance something has, the more capacity it has to hold charge. What is a capacitor? A capacitor is a device that stores charge when it is subjected to a potential difference. What does a capacitor physically look like? Although we represent most capacitors as two parallel plates, capacitors have a variety of shapes.

Capacitance

Camera ash

Flash unit par 2 (Source: nak) http://www.ickr.com/photos/haiiroproject/4029196634/

Computer Keyboards

Capacitor Applications (Source: Thomson-Brooks Cole) Serway & Jewett, Principles of Physics

Debrillator
Philips HeartStart FR2 + AED (Source: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.) http://www.alertrstaid.com/FR2wECG.html

Capacitance, C, is a measure of how much charge can be stored for a capacitor with a given electric potential difference.

Capacitors

Where Q is the amount of charge on each plate (+Q on one, Q on the other). Capacitance is measured in Farads. [Farad]!=![Coulomb]/[Volt] A Farad is a very large unit. Most things that you see are measured in F or nF.

Capacitors
For a parallel-plate capacitor, the capacitance is:

Here A is the area of one of the plates and d is the separation between the plates. When you connect a battery to a capacitor, charge is pulled from one plate and transferred to the other plate.

Capacitors
The transfer of charge will stop when the potential drop across the capacitor equals the potential difference of the battery. Capacitance is a physical characteristic of the capacitor; the only way to change it is to change the geometry of the capacitor. Thus, to increase capacitance, increase A or decrease d or make some other physical change to the capacitor.

Dielectrics
The problem with capacitors is that they need to have huge dimensions to carry a signicant amount of charge. Cost of material and manufacturing become a problem. The solution is to substitute an electrically insulating material between the parallel-plates instead of air or a vacuum. The material is known as a dielectric. When inserted into the capacitor, the dielectric will increase the overall capacitance.

The dielectric constant, , is the ratio of the new capacitance to the capacitance in a vacuum:

Dielectrics

Easily polarized materials have larger dielectric constants than materials not easily polarized.

Dielectrics

Filling a capacitor with a dielectric increases the capacitance by a factor equal to the dielectric constant. The capacitance for a parallel-plate capacitor changes to:

Dielectrics

Common dielectric values: vacuum!=!1 air!=!1.0006 glass!"!7 Note that the dielectric constant is a unitless variable.

Teardown
MAKE presents: The Capacitor (Source: makemagazine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYH9dGl4gUE

Capacitors
What can you say about the potential difference between capacitors in parallel? Capacitors in parallel all have the same potential differences. What can you say about the equivalent capacitance of capacitors in parallel? They are additive: The equivalent capacitance of the parallel capacitors also will have the same potential difference.

Capacitors
What can you say about the charge stored on capacitors in series? Capacitors in series all have the same charge. What can you say about the equivalent capacitance of capacitors in series?

The equivalent capacitance of the series capacitors also will have the same amount of charge.

We have only had capacitors or resistors as our circuit elements, but what would happen if we had both? The simplest such circuit is: What will happen when the switch is closed? A current will start to ow through the resistor and the capacitor will begin to charge. Charges from one plate of the capacitor will ow to the other.

RC Circuits

RC Circuits
Will the current be constant? No, as more and more charge builds up, the current will slow down until it becomes zero. This means that the current, I, is time dependent. The charge, Q, on the capacitor plates will also be time dependent. As time progresses, the charge will increase until it reaches some nal value, Qf.

Perform a Kirchoff loop over the circuit to nd Q.

RC Circuits

This is a differential equation; the solution is (to nd Q for a charging capacitor):

The capacitor charges exponentially as a function of time.

Capacitor charging Quick start Slow end < + + + + !VC: 0!max IR: max!0 >

We can also discharge the capacitor through a resistor.

RC Circuits

dQ Q R! = 0 dt C

This is a differential equation; the solution Q for a capacitor discharging is: The charge decreases exponentially as a function of time as the capacitor discharges:

When the time t!=! ! RC (= time constant),

RC Circuits

At time!!=!RC, the charge in the capacitor decreases to 0.368 its maximum value. In other words, in a time = RC, the capacitor loses 63.2% of its initial charge.

Time constant ! 100.0% 36.8% ++ C t=0 R !

[s] ! = RC [!][F]

Capacitor discharging < Quick start Slow end >

+ + + + !VC: max!0 IR: max!0

Time constant !"

("R)
100314-1150148 (Source: Waifer X) http://www.ickr.com/photos/waiferx/4433948522/

Time constant !#

(#R)
MAKE presents: The Capacitor (Source: makemagazine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYH9dGl4gUE

Exercise Care When Handling Capacitors

Overloaded
Capacitor explosion from excessive voltage (Source: Gerald Walker, aka WallerMedia) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WheLp0RdLQ

Protective clothing
noccon01.v (Source: No-Contact LLC) http://no-contact.com/index-2.html

End