Dacula, John Paul L.

BSCPE III-2
Capacitor
A capacitor consists of two conductors separated by an insulator. The chief feature of a capacitor
is its ability to store electric charge, with negative charge on one of its two conductors and positive
charge on the other. Accompanying this charge is energy, which a capacitor can release. Figure 8-1
shows the circuit symbol for a capacitor
A capacitor (originally known as a condenser) is a passive two-terminal electrical
component used to store energyelectrostatically in an electric field.
How Capacitor works
In a way, a capacitor is a little like a battery. Although they work in completely different ways, capacitors
and batteries both store electrical energy. If you have read How Batteries Work, then you know that a
battery has two terminals. Inside the battery, chemical reactions produce electrons on one terminal and
absorb electrons on the other terminal. A capacitor is much simpler than a battery, as it can't produce new
electrons -- it only stores them.
A capacitor consists of two conductors separated by an insulator. One of its basic forms is the parallelplate capacitor shown in Figure 101. It consists of two metal plates separated by a nonconducting
material (i.e., an insulator) called a dielectric. The dielectric may be air, oil, mica, plastic, ceramic, or
other suitable insulating material.
A capacitor is a circuit component designed to store electrical charge. If you connect a dc voltage source
to a capacitor, for example, the capacitor will charge to the voltage of the source. If you then disconnect
the source, the capacitor will remain charged, that is, its voltage will remain constant at the value that it
attained while connected to the source (assuming no leakage). Because of this tendency to hold voltage, a
capacitor opposes changes in voltage. It is this characteristic that gives capacitors their unique properties.
Capacitors are widely used in electrical and electronic applications. They are used in electronic systems
for signal conditioning and timing, for example, in speaker system crossover networks to separate highand low-frequency signals, in cameras to store the charge that fires the photoflash, on pump and
refrigeration motors to increase starting torque, in electric power systems to increase operating efficiency,
and so on. A photo of some typical capacitors is shown on the right.
Capacitance is the electrical property of capacitors: it is a measure of how much charge a capacitor can
hold. In this chapter, we look at capacitance and its basic properties
CAPACITOR CONSTRUCTION
Since the plates of the capacitor are metal, they contain huge numbers of free electrons. In their normal
state, however, they are uncharged, that is, there is no excess or deficiency of electrons on either plate. If
a dc source is now connected (Figure 102), electrons are pulled from the top plate by the positive
potential of the battery and the same number deposited on the bottom plate. This leaves the top plate with
a deficiency of electrons (i.e., positive charge) and the bottom plate with an excess (i.e., negative charge).

In this state, the capacitor is said to be charged. (Note that no current can pass through the dielectric
between the platesthus, the movement of electrons illustrated in Figure 102 will cease when the
capacitor reaches full charge.)
If Q coulombs of electrons are moved during the charging process (leaving the top plate with a deficiency
of Q electrons and the bottom with an excess of Q), we say that the capacitor has a charge of Q.
If we now disconnect the source (Figure 103), the excess electrons that were moved to the bottom plate
remain trapped as they have no way to return to the top plate. The capacitor therefore remains charged
with voltage E across it even though no source is present. Because of this, we say that a capacitor can
store charge. Capacitors with little leakage (Section 10.5) can hold their charge for a considerable time
sometimes for years.
Large-value capacitors charged to high voltages contain a great deal of energy and can store a potentially
lethal charge; you must therefore be very careful with them. Even high-value, low-voltage units can
contain enough energy to vaporize a screwdriver and spray metal in your eyes if you attempt to short the
leads. If you intend to handle such capacitors, or work on them, always discharge them after power has
been removed. You can do this by connecting a high-wattage resistor (sometimes referred to as a bleeder
resistor) of about 50 ohm/V of the rated voltage of the capacitor across the capacitors terminals until it is
discharged, but be careful to protect yourself from shock. Note also that some voltage may spring back
due to dielectric absorption after the discharge resistor is removed.

Inductor
An inductor, also called a coil or reactor, is a passive two-terminal electrical component which
resists changes in electric currentpassing through it. It consists of a conductor such as a wire, usually
wound into a coil. When a current flows through it, energy is stored temporarily in a magnetic field in the
coil. When the current flowing through an inductor changes, the time-varying magnetic field induces
a voltage in the conductor, according to Faradays law of electromagnetic induction, which opposes the
change in current that created it.
How Inductors Work
In this chapter, we look at self-inductance (usually just called inductance) and inductors. To get at
the idea, recall that when current flows through a conductor, it creates a magnetic field; as you will see in
this chapter, this field affects circuit operation. To describe this effect, we introduce a circuit parameter
called inductance. Inductance is due entirely to the magnetic field created by the current, and its effect is
to slow the buildup and collapse of the current andin generaloppose its change. Thus, in a sense,
inductance can be likened to inertia in a mechanical system. The advantage of using inductance in our
analyses is that we can dispense with all considerations of magnetism and magnetic fieldsand just
concentrate on familiar circuit quantities, voltage, current, and the newly introduced circuit parameter,
inductance.
A circuit element built to possess inductance is called an inductor. In its simplest form an inductor is
simply a coil of wire, Figure 131(a). Ideally, inductors have only inductance. However, since they are
made of wire, practical inductors also have some resistance. Initially, however, we assume that this
resistance is negligible and treat inductors as ideal (i.e., we assume that they have no property other than
inductance). (Coil resistance is considered in Sections 13.6 and 13.7.) In practice, inductors are also
referred to as chokes (because they try to limit or choke current change) or as reactors (for reasons to be
discussed in Chapter 16). In this chapter, we refer to them mainly as inductors.
On circuit diagrams and in equations, inductance is represented by the letter L. Its circuit symbol is a coil
as shown in Figure 131(b). The unit of inductance is the henry. Inductors are used in many places. In
electronics, for example, they are used in switchedmode power supplies as energy storage devices, in
electrical power systems they are used to help control short circuit currents during fault conditions, and in
telecommunication systems they are used for electrical noise reduction in communication circuits.
INDUCTANCE AND INDUCTOR CONSTRUCTION
For most coils, a current i produces a flux linkage iV4 that is proportional to i. The equation relating
N + and i has a constant of proportionality L that is the quantity symbol for the inductance of the coil.
Specifically, Li = iV+ and L = N + i. The SI unit of inductance is the henry?, with unit symbol H. A
component designed to be used for its inductance property is called an inductor. The terms coil and
choke are also used. Figure 9-2 shows the circuit symbol for an inductor.
The inductance of a coil depends on the shape of the coil, the permeability of the surrounding
material, the number of turns, the spacing of the turns, and other factors. For the single-layer coil shown
in Fig. 9-3, the inductance is approximately L = N 2 p A / l , where N is the number of turns of wire, A
is the core cross-sectional area in square meters, 1 is the coil length in meters, and p is the core
permeability. The greater the length to diameter, the more accurate the formula. For a length of 10 times
the diameter, the actual inductance is 4 percent less than the value given by the formula.

Alternating currents (ac) are currents that alternate in direction (usually many times per second),
passing first in one direction, then in the other through a circuit. Such currents are produced by voltage
sources whose polarities alternate between positive and negative (rather than being fixed as with dc
sources). By convention, alternating currents are called ac currents and alternating voltages are called ac
voltages.
One way to generate an ac voltage is to rotate a coil of wire at constant angular velocity in a fixed
magnetic fieldsee Note. As indicated in Figure 156, slip rings and brushes connect the coil to the load.
The magnitude of the resulting voltage is proportional to the rate at which flux lines are cut (Faradays
law, Chapter 13), and its polarity is dependent on the direction the coil sides move through the field.
Since the rate of cutting flux varies with time, the resulting voltage will also vary with time. For example
in Figure 156(a), since the coil sides are moving parallel to the field, no flux lines are being cut and the
induced voltage at this instant (and hence the current) is zero. (This is defined as the 0_ position of the
coil.) As the coil rotates from the 0_ position, coil sides AA_ and BB_ cut across flux lines; hence,
voltage builds, reaching a peak when flux is cut at the maximum rate in the 90_ position as in (b). Note
the polarity of the voltage and the direction of current. As the coil rotates further, voltage decreases,
reaching zero at the 180_ position when the coil sides again move parallel to the field as in (c). At this
point, the coil has gone through a half-revolution.
During the second half-revolution, coil sides cut flux in directions opposite to that which they did in the
first half-revolution; hence, the polarity of the induced voltage reverses. As indicated in Figure 156(d),
voltage reaches a peak at the 270_ point, and, since the polarity of the voltage has changed, so has the
direction of current. When the coil reaches the 360_ position, voltage is again zero and the cycle starts
over. Figure 157 shows one cycle of the resulting waveform. Since the coil rotates continuously, the
voltage produced will be a repetitive, periodic waveform as you saw in Figure 152(b). Current will be
periodic also.