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Electric Power

This document discusses various topics related to electricity including electric circuits, electric lighting, electric heating, house circuits, circuits in parallel, switches and fuses, safety in electrical circuits, paying for electricity, and dangers of electricity. It provides information on how emf relates to energy and charge, different types of electric lights such as filament, fluorescent, and compact fluorescent lamps, how heating elements and thermostats in appliances work, the components and wiring of house circuits, how parallel circuits function, the purpose of switches and fuses in live wires, earthing and other safety features, how electricity usage is measured in kilowatt-hours, and electric shock and fire risks.

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27 views36 pages

Electric Power

This document discusses various topics related to electricity including electric circuits, electric lighting, electric heating, house circuits, circuits in parallel, switches and fuses, safety in electrical circuits, paying for electricity, and dangers of electricity. It provides information on how emf relates to energy and charge, different types of electric lights such as filament, fluorescent, and compact fluorescent lamps, how heating elements and thermostats in appliances work, the components and wiring of house circuits, how parallel circuits function, the purpose of switches and fuses in live wires, earthing and other safety features, how electricity usage is measured in kilowatt-hours, and electric shock and fire risks.

Uploaded by

fruqaiyahamza
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 PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Electric Power

The power of an electric circuit


• Emf = Energy per each coulomb of charge.
Electric Lightning
a) Filament lightning :
The filament is a small coil of tungsten wire , which becomes white hot
when there is a current in it .
The higher the temperature of the filament ,the greater the proportion
of electrical energy transferred to light and for the reason which is
made from tungsten which has a high melting point C .
Most lamps are gas filled and contained nitrogen and argon , not air .
b) Fluorescent strips
• A filament lamp transfers only 10 % electrical energy supplied to it.
The other 90% becomes heat.
• Fluorescent strip lamps are 5 times as efficient as filament lamps .
• Fluorescent lamps may last for 3000 hours compared with a 1000
hours filament lamp.
• Costly to install but lasts for a long run compared to filament lamps .
• When the power is supplied the mercury vapour emits invisible UV
rays.
c) Compact fluorescent lamps
• These can be fit straight in to normal light socket .

• They last up to eight times longer than normal filament lamp

• For the same amount of light it uses five times less energy than a
normal filament lamp
• E.g. 20 W fluorescent is equivalent to 100 W filament lamp .
Electric heating
a)Heating elements : In domestic appliances such as electric fire ,
cookers , kettles and irons the ‘elements’ are made from Nichrome wire
.This is an alloy of Nickel and Chromium which does not oxide when the
high current make them red hot and brittle .
b)Three heat switch: This is used to control heating appliances .It has
three settings and uses two identical elements .On ‘High” the elements
are in parallel across the supply voltage . On medium there is only one
element and on low elements are is series .
.
c) Fuses
• A fuse protects the circuit, it is a short length of wire of a material with a
low melting point (tinned copper )
• This wire melts and breaks when a current exceeds a certain value .
Reasons for excessive current in a circuit .
a) worn insulation on connecting wire
b) overloaded circuits.
Without a fuse the wiring would become hot in these cases and could
cause a fire.
A fuse should ensure that the current-carrying capacity of the wiring is not
exceeded.
Joule meter
• Instead of using and ammeter and a voltmeter to measure the
electrical energy transferred by an appliance ,a joule meter can be
used to measure it directly in joules .
House circuits
• Electricity comes to our homes by underground or overhead wires.

• There are live [L ] wire and the neutral [N] wire is connected to all
the appliances .
• The neutral wire is earthed at local substations so there is no PD
between it and the earth
• Mains supply is always a.c ( alternative current ), the live wire is
alternatively positive and negative .
Circuits in parallel
• (i) The p.d. across each lamp is fixed (at the mains p.d.), so the lamp
shines with the same brightness irrespective of how many other
lamps are switched on.

• (ii) Each lamp can be turned on and off independently; if one lamp
fails, the others can still be operated
Switches and fuses
• These are always in the live wire. If they were in the neutral, light
switches and power sockets would be ‘live’ when switches were ‘off’
or fuses ‘blown’.
• A fatal shock could then be obtained by, for example, touching the
element of an electric fire when it was switched off
Staircase circuit
• The light is controlled from two places by the two two-way switches.

Ring main circuit

• The live and neutral wires each run in two complete rings round the
house and the power sockets, each rated at 13A, are tapped off from
them. Thinner wires can be used since the current to each socket
flows by two paths,
Fused plug
• Only one type of plug is used in a UK ring main circuit.

• It is wired as in Figure 40.10a. Note the colours of the wire coverings:


L – brown, N – blue, E – green and yellow.

• It has its own cartridge fuse, 3A (red) for appliances with powers up to
720W, or 13A (brown) for those between 720W and 3kW.
Safety in electrical circuits
• Earthing
• A ring main has a third wire which goes to the top sockets on all power
points and is earthed by being connected either to a metal water pipe
entering the house or to an earth connection on the supply cable.
• This third wire is a safety precaution to prevent electric shock should an
appliance develop a fault.
• The earth pin on a three-pin plug is connected to the metal case of the
appliance which is thus joined to earth by a path of almost zero
resistance. If then, for example, the element of an electric fire breaks or
sags and touches the case, a large current flows to earth and ‘blows’ the
fuse
Circuit breakers
• Circuit breakers are now used instead of fuses in consumer units.
• They contain an electromagnet (Chapter 45) which, when the current
exceeds the rated value of the circuit breaker, becomes strong enough
to separate a pair of contacts and breaks the circuit.
• They operate much faster than fuses and have the advantage that
they can be reset by pressing a button
Double insulation
• Appliances such as vacuum cleaners, hairdryers and food mixers are
usually double insulated.
• Connection to the supply is by a two-core insulated cable, with no
earth wire, and the appliance is enclosed in an insulating plastic case.
• Any metal attachments that the user might touch are fitted into this
case so that they do not make a direct connection with the internal
electrical parts, such as a motor. There is then no risk of a shock
should a fault develop.
Paying for electricity
• Electricity supply companies charge for the electrical energy they
supply.
• A joule is a very small amount of energy and a larger unit, the
kilowatt-hour (kWh), is used.
• A kilowatt-hour is the electrical energy used by a 1 kW appliance in 1
hour.

• 1 kWh = 1000 J/s × 3600 s = 3 600 000 J = 3.6 MJ


E.g.
• A 3kW electric fire working for 2 hours uses 6 kWh of electrical energy
– usually called 6 units . Electricity meters, which are joulemeters, are
marked in kWh:
Dangers of electricity
• a) Electric shock Electric shock occurs if current flows from an electric
circuit through a person’s body to earth.
• This can happen if there is damaged insulation or faulty wiring.
• The typical resistance of dry skin is about 10 000 Ω, so if a person
touches a wire carrying electricity at 240 V, an estimate of the current
flowing through them to earth would be I = V/R = 240/10 000 = 0.024
A = 24 mA.
• For wet skin, the resistance is lowered to about 1000 Ω (since water is
a good conductor of electricity) so the current would increase to
around 240 mA.
How dangerous is electric shock
• It is the size of the current (not the voltage) and the length of time for
which it acts which determine the strength of an electric shock.
• The path the current takes influences the effect of the shock; some
parts of the body are more vulnerable than others.
• A current of 100 mA through the heart is likely to be fatal.
• Damp conditions increase the severity of an electric shock because
water lowers the resistance of the path .
Fire risks
• If flammable material is placed too close to a hot appliance such as an
electric heater, it may catch fire.
• Similarly if the electrical wiring in the walls of a house becomes
overheated, a fire may start.
• Wires become hot when they carry electrical currents – the larger the
current carried, the hotter a particular wire will become, since the
rate of production of heat equals R
Q 1:(0625 / 22/FM20)
Q 2 : (0625 /
MJ/11/ 06)
Q 3: ( 0625 /MJ/ 11/07)
Q 4 (0625 / MJ/11/ 07 )
Q 5 : ( 0625 /ON/ 11/ 07)
Q 6: ( 0625 /ON/ 11/ 07 )
Q 7 : ( 0625 /ON /11/ 07)

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