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Physics Project

To study of discharging and charging of capacitor

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yaadheshthinesh
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24 views

Physics Project

To study of discharging and charging of capacitor

Uploaded by

yaadheshthinesh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
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INTRODUCTION An R-C circuit is a circuit containing a resistor and capacitor in series to a power source. Such circuits find very important applications in various areas of science and in basic circuits which act as building blocks of modern technological devices. It should be really helpful if we get comfortable with the terminologies charging and discharging of capacitors. A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. In the hydraulic analogy, charge carriers flowing through a wire are analogous to water flowing through a pipe. A capacitor is like a rubber membrane sealed inside a pipe. Water molecules cannot pass through the membrane, but some water can move by stretching the membrane. The analogy clarifies a few aspects of capacitors: ° The flow of current alters the charge on a capacitor, just as the flow of water changes the position of the membrane. More specifically, the effect of an electric current is to increase the charge of one plate of the capacitor, and decrease the charge of the other plate by an equal amount. This is just like how, when water flow moves the rubber membrane, it increases the amount of water on one side of the membrane, and decreases the amount of water on the other side. * The more a capacitor is charged, the larger its ; Le., the more it "pushes back" against the charging current. This is analogous to the fact that the more a membrane is stretched, the more it pushes back on the water. ¢ Current can flow "through" a capacitor even though no individual electron can get from one side to the other. This is analogous to the fact that water can flow through the pipe even though no water molecule can pass through the rubber membrane. Of course, the flow cannot continue the same direction forever; the capacitor will experience dielectric breakdown, and analogously the membrane will eventually break. * The capacitance describes how much charge can be stored on one plate of a capacitor for a given "push" (voltage drop). A very stretchy, flexible membrane corresponds to a_ higher capacitance than a stiff membrane. ¢ A charged-up capacitor is storing potential energy, analogously to a stretched membrane. (ii) Using hydraulic analogy only we can understand that when the capacitor is charged the membrane is stretched, but now if you allow the water to come out slowly and let the membrane relax, then it is called discharging of capacitor. In other words when the charge on each of the plates becomes zero and the potential difference across its terminals drops to zero. Below is a graphical description of capacitor as a pipe with a membrane:- 1. relaxed membrane (uncharged) 4. QUeUEY Me HWIarie \Urlaryeuy Materials required i. Broadband ii. 1OOuF capacitor ® iii. 1MQ resistor Ween iv. Multimeter & j v. 9V battery vi. Wire stripper, oAh n wires, battery connector and stopwatch Theory When a capacitor of capacitance C_ is connected in series with a resistor of resistance R and then connected to a battery of EMF E it gets charged but since some resistance has been introduced, this charging process takes some time and hence the potential difference between the plates of the capacitor varies as an exponential function of time, i.e. Vae* The circuit diagram for this experiment is given belo\ Applying Kirchhoff’s law in the above circuit during charging, i.e. capacitor is connected to the battery E-Ve-IR=O.... ccceeseee (i) Q V= ¢ Putting above value in eq. (i) B-B-iR=0 Since i= e Therefore, E - q 3 a R=0 eE-2 =r EC-Q= “@ RC Integrating both sides L L Ie as Sere EC-G 1 “REC a eee (ii) =Q 2e lt = Hence we get, Q=EC |1 | Since EC=Q, for a capacitor Therefore, Q=Qo |e) ecceeeeeseeeees (iii) Here, Q charge at time t > Qo max charge Also Q=CV and Q,.=CV., where V and V, are voltage at time t and max voltage respectively Therefore from eq (iii), CV=CV. , this is the required expression. [NOTE:- This is the charging equation only, for discharging equation proceed the same way but only remove E from Kirchhoff law’s equation]. Thus equation for discharging, [) When RC=t, then equation becomes, V=Ve be" Which on solving gives V=0.63V., i.e. the voltage on capacitor at time t=RC becomes 63% of the max voltage, which means 63% of total charge has been stored in the capacitor. This product of R and C has been given a new name, i.e. time constant and is denoted by t, which means for any capacitor in RC circuit 63% of total charge is stored at time constant. In my experiment | have used a 100uF capacitor and a 1MQ resistor thus time constant = 100x10°x10°=100 sec, PROCEDURE i, Connect all the components in the breadboard as shown in the following picture and place them iii. Before proceeding further we must have a bit of knowledge about breadboard. A breadboard is a simple circuit building device used to build temporary circuits just to test their working. It is very simple to work with as it does not require any soldering or attachment of components. The components could be just pushed in the holes and connections could be made easily. A straight line pattern of holes resembles a wire and the arrangement of these holes are shown below:- vi. Now take the battery and connect its terminals across the terminals of the capacitor and start the stop watch. Note the readings at 20sec intervals and write them down. [NOTE:- Reading the previous statement could be astonishing as it says that measure voltage at 20sec interval but one could question that current move at very high speed so how could one measure the changing readings! But believe me it wasn’t an easy task but since the voltage depends on reciprocal of exponential function and as time passes by the changing readings will get slowed down and even after infinite time the capacitor could not be charged up to max voltage. Also since its time constant is 100 sec which is quite practical to measure at and hence this experiment is very much justified] Take 10 readings and if required the 20sec gap could be increased because as the time passes by the change in voltage becomes smaller and smaller. Now let the capacitor be charged up to 460 sec because then it will become 99.99% charged [since we have a limited time and we can’t wait for infinite time for it to charge completely!]. Now remove the battery and now attach a wire in place of the battery terminals and again note the multimeter readings changing and record them. vii. Plot a graph between voltage and time for charging as well as discharging. Dorr crs Dero Pee] Pe Ne I) PN ta) erat Muni Me eee teers] Graphs: Plot of voltage v/s time. Time on x-axis and voltage on y-axis I. For charging CORNY RUAVME© charging of capacitor > Values 100 200 300 400 Discharging of capacitor oe ¥Values 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 (ii) For discharging:- The original graphs for discharging and charging respectively are:- Potertial dtference (V) Potential

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