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Capacitor 3 - Wikipedia

The document discusses the fundamental equations governing capacitors and inductors in electrical circuits, including their charging and discharging behaviors. It explains the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in RC circuits, highlighting the time constant and exponential decay of current and voltage. Additionally, it covers AC circuits, introducing the concept of impedance and its dependence on frequency and capacitance, illustrating how capacitors behave differently at various frequencies.

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5 views

Capacitor 3 - Wikipedia

The document discusses the fundamental equations governing capacitors and inductors in electrical circuits, including their charging and discharging behaviors. It explains the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in RC circuits, highlighting the time constant and exponential decay of current and voltage. Additionally, it covers AC circuits, introducing the concept of impedance and its dependence on frequency and capacitance, illustrating how capacitors behave differently at various frequencies.

Uploaded by

sardarabdulqayoom47
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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initial voltage V(t0).

This is the integral form of the capacitor equation:[30]

Taking the derivative of this and multiplying by C yields the derivative form:[31]

for C independent of time, voltage and electric charge.

The dual of the capacitor is the inductor, which stores energy in a magnetic field rather than an
electric field. Its current-voltage relation is obtained by exchanging current and voltage in the
capacitor equations and replacing C with the inductance L.

RC circuits

A simple resistor–capacitor circuit


demonstrates charging of a capacitor.

A series circuit containing only a resistor, a capacitor, a switch and a constant DC source of voltage
V0 is known as a charging circuit.[32] If the capacitor is initially uncharged while the switch is open,
and the switch is closed at t = 0, it follows from Kirchhoff's voltage law that

Taking the derivative and multiplying by C, gives a first-order differential equation:

At t = 0, the voltage across the capacitor is zero and the voltage across the resistor is V0. The initial
current is then I(0) = V0/R. With this assumption, solving the differential equation yields
where τ0 = RC is the time constant of the system. As the capacitor reaches equilibrium with the
source voltage, the voltages across the resistor and the current through the entire circuit decay
exponentially. In the case of a discharging capacitor, the capacitor's initial voltage (VCi) replaces V0.
The equations become

AC circuits

Impedance, the vector sum of reactance and resistance, describes the phase difference and the
ratio of amplitudes between sinusoidally varying voltage and sinusoidally varying current at a given
frequency. Fourier analysis allows any signal to be constructed from a spectrum of frequencies,
whence the circuit's reaction to the various frequencies may be found. The reactance and
impedance of a capacitor are respectively

where j is the imaginary unit and ω is the angular frequency of the sinusoidal signal. The −j phase
indicates that the AC voltage V = ZI lags the AC current by 90°: the positive current phase
corresponds to increasing voltage as the capacitor charges; zero current corresponds to
instantaneous constant voltage, etc.

Impedance decreases with increasing capacitance and increasing frequency.[33] This implies that a
higher-frequency signal or a larger capacitor results in a lower voltage amplitude per current
amplitude – an AC "short circuit" or AC coupling. Conversely, for very low frequencies, the reactance
is high, so that a capacitor is nearly an open circuit in AC analysis – those frequencies have been
"filtered out".

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