Using a Schering A.C.

Bridge
at low frequency to determine
condenser properties.

David.R.Gilson
16th November 1998

Abstract

This experiment was an exercise in balancing a standard Schering A.C. bridge circuit to
determine unknown impedances. These circuits are very sensitive to noise and care had to be
taken to earth out any noise. This was done by using Co-axial leads for the transmission lines
and utilising the lead screens as a path for the noise current to go to earth. The exercise consisted
of measuring four capacitances (and loss factors) and then similarly analysing a butterfly
capacitor with two different dielectrics, Air and Medicinal Paraffin. The data from the Medicinal
Paraffin was used to calculate the dielectric constant of the Paraffin. The calculated value was
found to be 1.930.01. Which is close to the published value of 2.2.

1) Introduction
[1] Usually, the most precise means of measuring a complex impedance with an alternating
current (A.C.) is to use some type of A.C. bridge. A generalised A.C. (Wheatstone) bridge is
shown is figure one.

Figure 1. A generalised A.C. (Wheatstone) bridge.

For an unknown impedance to be determined, the bridge has to be balanced, the voltage across
the detector has to be zero. This means that not only the voltages at both sides should have the
same amplitude, but the same phase too. Once this is achieved, two separate conditions are
satisfied, which respectively involve the real and imaginary parts of a complex impedance. It is
now clear that there are two balancing conditions which must be satisfied simultaneously. Such a
property means that the two balancing conditions must be independent of each other. This is an
important influence in the design of bridge circuits for such use. For this, one would choose a
bridge which had two variable impedances which were independent and exclusive of each other
in both of the balancing conditions. With such a bridge one of the impedances can be varied until
a minimum reading on the detector is reached and the second variable impedance can be varied
with until a new minimum is observed, then finer control can be achieved by returning to and
varying the first impedance again. This process would be repeated as required.

It is also highly advantageous for the balancing conditions to be independent of frequency. This
is because it is almost certain that no power supply could give a perfectly sinusoidal output, and
it is therefore equally certain that there would be additional harmonics. This becomes a problem
when one is observing and attempting to minimise very small signals. The harmonic voltages
would make such a small signal (which is obviously of comparable amplitude) indiscernible.

Resistances and capacitances are the variable impedances used to reach the balanced state. This
is because variable inductances use a movable contact which introduces a large intrinsic
resistance. Since a general rule in these matters are that the impedances of all the "arms" should
be of the same order of magnitude for the best performance, variable inductances are quite
undesirable and are hence not used.

The balance condition for the A.C. bridge shown in Figure One is similar to that of it's D.C.
counter part,

Z1/Z2=Z3/Z4 (1)
Both of the balance conditions are contained in this complex equation. This makes sense when
you consider that the real and imaginary conditions must be satisfied simultaneously. The A.C.
Schering bridge is particularly used to measure capacitance and the same general principals
outlined above also apply to this circuit.

Figure Two. A circuit diagram of an A.C. Schering bridge.

A diagram of a general Schering bridge is shown in Fig. Two. The unknown capacitor (or
condenser) is represented by the series grouping of C and R on the same arm of the bridge. C1 is
a good standard condenser, whose magnitude should be of the same order as that of the
condenser under test (Note, this requirement may not be a possible if the condenser under test is
unknown!). R1 is a fixed (non-reactive) resistance, and R2 is a variable resistor shunted by a
variable condenser C2. The balance condition can now be expanded to the following,

j C1.(R+1/(jC ))=R1.((1/R2)+j C2) (2)

Separating the real and imaginary parts gives both of the balance conditions,

C=C1(R2/R1) (3.a)
R=R1(C2/C1) (3.b)

These conditions fulfil the A.C. bridge prescription that has been discussed so far. Only one of
the variable components appears in each equation and there is no frequency dependency either.
Also, the unknown capacitance is obtained in terms of a standard capacitor and the ratio of two
resistances. C2 is only used in the determination of R, the unknown resistance. With a good
condenser R will be small and a high degree of accuracy in the calculation of R is uncommon.

To find the values of C and R in the circuit, equations 3a and 3b can be rearranged to linear
functions, where the unknowns (C & R) are the gradients of each function respectively. By
changing the value of R1 in the circuit shown in Fig. 2 different balance values of C2 and R2 will
be found. So 3.a and 3.b respectively become,

C.R1=R2.C1 (4.a)

R.C1/C2=R1 (4.b)
Now the unknown values can be determined by taking the gradient from experimental values of
the known impedances.

There is a particular piece of apparatus that can be used in this type of investigation. The
apparatus referred to is the Butterfly Capacitor (BC). The technical aspects of this are discussed
in more detail in the second section. The BC however can be considered as a series of parallel
plate capacitors in parallel which is held inside of a brass container . The container can be filled
with different substances. This means that dielectric properties of different materials (liquids
and/or gases) can be investigated.

If the capacitance of the BC in a vacuum is known and the capacitance for a particular dielectric
medium can be measured, the dielectric constant of the medium can be determined simply by the
equation,

m=Cm/Co (5)

2) Experimental Procedure

The bridge circuit that was to be used throughout the whole experiment was constructed
(schematically at least) as shown in Fig. 2. C1, the fixed capacitor was a standard laboratory
capacitance, for this exercise the value of C1 was (0.3040.1%)F. Both resistances were
variable (non reactive) resistors. Even though R1 in the circuit is supposed to be a fixed resistor,
it was required to be changed to change the conditions of the bridge so that different values of R2
and C2 could be found at the balanced state of the bridge. A good range to use for the resistors is
between 0 Ohms and 10 Kilo-Ohms. The variable capacitor C2 was a standard laboratory
variable capacitor. A good range for this (if the reader wishes to repeat the experiment) is
between 10-1 and 10-4 -Farads.

The driving voltage was supplied from a standard frequency generator which had a variable
amplitude and frequency. Since this experiment depends on low (audio in fact) frequencies, so it
should be made sure that any frequency generator used is capable of producing output at such
frequencies. In this experiment the signal generator was constantly held at 8 KHz and 2 volts
output amplitude. A standard Cathode Ray Oscilloscope (CRO) was used as a detector in the
bridge, this is preferable to other methods used in the past for this type of experiment as a much
higher resolution is possible than audio detectors for example.

All the components were connected by screened co-axial leads. All of the component terminals
were threaded axles (apart from the variable capacitor) with a hole through for wires to be placed
in. The axles then had a screw-down cap to hold any connected wires secure, this is standard
equipment that can be found in virtually any laboratory. The variable capacitor had a spring
loaded terminal, this type of terminal is just as suitable as the former terminal type.

The bridge is very susceptible to noise. This is a problem when attempting to observe near
balance signals on the CRO. If there is too much noise the low-near-balance signals would be
indiscernible from the noise and would obviously detrimentally affect the accuracy of any final
readings. Fortunately this difficulty can be circumvented. If short screened leads are used and all
of the screens are connect to earth points, the noise current can be minimised. However any point
should be connected to an earth point once only, otherwise earth loops occur which would also
spoil any readings. In this experiment each component had it's own earth (all the bridge elements
had metallic casing connected to an earth terminal which provided a good earth connection).

The first part of the exercise was to examine four condensers of unknown capacitance (and loss
factor). In Fig. 2 the series combination of C and R is modelled as the unknown condenser. The
resistor R1 was held constant while R2 and C2 were adjusted (alternately) until a minimum signal
was observed on the CRO. The values of all the bridge elements were then recorded. The process
would then be repeated with a different value of R1 until a satisfactory number of readings were
taken (in this case five reading were taken for each condenser, which provided ample precision
for each value of capacitance).

The next part of the exercise was to examine the condenser properties of a Butterfly Capacitor
(BC) with two different dielectrics. The BC consisted of (for those who are unfamiliar with the
device) a brass cylindrical container whose lid accommodated the actual capacitor and terminals.
The capacitive part was a series of interlaced parallel metal plates, which could be considered
(for the sake of simplicity and the observed internal connections) as an arrangement of single
(parallel plate) capacitors in parallel. This was on the underside of the lid, so that when in place,
the capacitor was encased in the container. The terminals were on the top of the lid, there were
two circuital terminals and one for earth as with the other bridge elements.

First of all, the BC was examined dry, the dimensions of the capacitor were measured so that the
vacuum capacitance could be determined (for future reference), this was done by using standard
vernier callipers. Then the BC was connected to the bridge circuit with Air as it's dielectric, the
same process was used as before with the BC in the place of C and R (See Fig. 2). Next, the BC
container was filled with Medicinal Paraffin and the BC was replaced in the container. So now,
the Paraffin was the BC's dielectric. When doing this, it should be made sure that (and was in
this experiment) that the BC is clean and free from contaminants which would effect the BC's
dielectric properties. Again the same process of setting R1 and then varying R2 and C2 until
balance is achieved and then setting R1 again and so on, was done on the BC with a Paraffin
dielectric.

3) Results

Examination of unknown standard condensers

As suggested by equations 4.a and 4.b, the capacitance and resistance of each condenser could be
calculated from taking the gradient of plots of combinations of respective data. Recalling
equation 4.a,

C.R1=R2.C1 (4.a)
Below are plots of R1 versus R2.C1 for the data collected in this experiment.

Figure Three. A plot of R1 versus R2.C1 for the first unknown condenser.

Figure Four. A plot of R1 versus R2.C1 for the second unknown condenser.
 Figure Five. A plot of R1 versus R2.C1 for the third unknown condenser.

Figure Six. A plot of R1 versus R2.C1 for the fourth unknown condenser.

Below is a table showing the numerical values of the capacitances and the respective errors along
with the values and errors of the resistances of the condensers. All these values were calculated
using least square fit analysis, including the errors. See reference [2] for the source of these
formulae.

Capacitance Resistance
Condenser C(F) C(F) R() R()
One 0.673 0.028 0.21 0.67
Two 0.487 0.025 1.07 0.48
Three 0.231 0.029 2.59 4.95
Four 0.457 0.030 4.05 6.00
Table One. Capacitances and resistances of unknown laboratory condensers

As can be seen, the uncertainty in the capacitive values are reasonable (no more than 12.6% for
the largest). The resistances have extremely large uncertainties. Since the accuracy of the bridge
components are very good, there is little intrinsic error for the resistive readings. There were
actually difficulties in taking these readings which shall be discussed in the next section.

Examination of a Butterfly Capacitor with various dielectric mediums.

The next stage of the experiment was analysing the condenser properties of a BC (butterfly
capacitor). The internal geometry of the BC was quite complicated and could have meant higher
uncertainty in calculated quantities. Simplifying assumptions were hence made about the
capacitor geometry (see last section for a longer discussion of this point). Below is a list of
spatial values for the internal structure of the BC.

Plate spacing (m) 0.00065

Plate width (m) 0.03008
Plate depth (m) 0.04090
Error in linear measurement (m) 0.00001
Plate area (m) 0.00123
Error in area (m) 0.00058
Number of plates 68

Table Two. Spatial dimensions of simplified BC structure.

From these values the capacitance of the BC in vacuum can be calculated. As stated earlier, the
BC was examined with Air and medicinal paraffin as dielectrics. The capacitance and loss
factors were calculated in the same way as the other unknown condensers. Below are the graphs
used to determine the capacitance for Air and Paraffin.
 Figure Six. A plot of R1 versus R2.C1 for a BC with an Air dielectric.

Figure Seven. A plot of R1 versus R2.C1 for a BC with a medicinal paraffin dielectric.

Below is table showing the capacitance and loss factor (with errors) for air and paraffin
dielectric, the vacuum capacitance is also included.

Capacitance Resistance
Dielectric C(nF) C(nF) R() R()
Vacuum 1.140 0.008 Not/Applicable.
Air 1.200 0.090 85.1 24.5
Med. Paraffin 2.190 0.060 7.39.10-11 4.27.10-11

Table Three. Capacitances of BC with various dielectrics.

It can once again be seen that the capacitances (not including the vacuum capacitance) were
calculated with satisfactory accuracy but again the loss factor accuracy is very low.

One final calculation in this exercise was to calculate the dielectric constant of the medicinal
paraffin. This can be calculated directly from the values shown above, using equation 5. Once
calculated the value 1.930.01 was obtained. The error here is dependent on the error in the
measurements of the capacitor dimensions used to determine the vacuum capacitance and the
statistical error from the determination the paraffin dielectric capacitance.

4) Discussion

Fortunately, the results were as much as they were expected to be. The one part of this
experiment that was unsatisfactory was the determination of all the loss factors. The errors were
too large to make any sensible judgements on the magnitudes calculated. As already mentioned,
these large errors are not due to inaccuracies in the bridge circuit elements. However (as already
pointed out), the Schering bridge circuit is very susceptible to noise. The screened leads went
some way to eliminating this problem by connecting the screens to earth. In construction of the
circuit, some of these leads were cut with excess length to allow manoeuvrability without
disrupting any of the terminal connections. However, the longer the lead, the larger the cross
section that can pick up noise. In that case, it would reduce the noise levels further if the leads
were made as short as possible.

In the determination of the dielectric constant of medicinal paraffin there were several
limitations. Firstly the concentration of the paraffin was not known, any dilution would change
it's electromagnetic properties, which would obviously change the dielectric constant. Also, the
internal geometry of the BC was quite complicated, so to calculate the vacuum capacitance, the
geometry had to be modelled as a much simpler structure and also the error in the vacuum
capacitance was dependent on the error of the spatial measurements of the capacitor, which in
turn effected the error of the dielectric constant.

In this exercise, the circuit that was constructed was reliable for measuring capacitances of
condensers, but not for measuring loss factors. A good improvement would be to decrease the
length of the leads as much a possible without straining the terminal connections.

5) Conclusion

The purpose of this exercise was to use an A.C. Schering bridge to determine the capacitance and
loss factor of any particular condenser. The first four standard condensers were successfully
examined, albeit with inaccurate loss factors. The butterfly capacitor was equally successfully
examined with two different dielectrics (Air and Medicinal Paraffin) again though, with
inaccurate loss factors.

The dielectric constant of medicinal paraffin (at room temperature and pressure) was measured
to be 1.930.01. This is close to the published value of 2.2 (see reference [3]). However, the
concentration of the published value is unknown as is the sample used in the experiment, which
could in itself account for the difference (apart from other factors discussed earlier).

6) References

[1] Bleany B.I. and Bleany B., 1957, "Electricity & Magnetism" 2nd Ed., Oxford
Science Publications, Chapter 16, pp 434,..,440.

[2] Kirkup Les, 1994, "Experimental Methods, an introduction to the analysis and
presentation of data". John Wiley and sons, Chapter 6, pp 109,114,115.

[3] GWC Kaye & TH Laby, 1973, "Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants",
14th ed. Longman group limited.

Ripple (electrical)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about ripples in electricity. For ripples on fluid interfaces, see capillary wave.

The most common meaning of ripple in electrical science is the small unwanted residual
periodic variation of the direct current (dc) output of a power supply which has been derived
from an alternating current (ac) source. This ripple is due to incomplete suppression of the
alternating waveform within the power supply.

As well as this time-varying phenomenon, there is a frequency domain ripple that arises in
some classes of filter and other signal processing networks. In this case the periodic variation is a
variation in the insertion loss of the network against increasing frequency. The variation may not
be strictly linearly periodic. In this meaning also, ripple is usually to be considered an unwanted
effect, its existence being a compromise between the amount of ripple and other design
parameters.

Contents
1 Time-domain ripple
 o 1.1 Effects of ripple
2 Frequency-domain ripple
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References

Time-domain ripple

Full-wave rectifier circuit with a reservoir capacitor on the output for the purpose of smoothing
ripple

Ripple factor () may be defined as the ratio of the root mean square (rms) value of the ripple
voltage to the absolute value of the dc component of the output voltage, usually expressed as a
percentage. However, ripple voltage is also commonly expressed as the peak-to-peak value. This
is largely because peak-to-peak is both easier to measure on an oscilloscope and is simpler to
calculate theoretically. Filter circuits intended for the reduction of ripple are usually called
smoothing circuits.

The simplest scenario in ac to dc conversion is a rectifier without any smoothing circuitry at all.
The ripple voltage is very large in this situation; the peak-to-peak ripple voltage is equal to the
peak ac voltage. A more common arrangement is to allow the rectifier to work into a large
smoothing capacitor which acts as a reservoir. After a peak in output voltage the capacitor (C)
supplies the current to the load (R) and continues to do so until the capacitor voltage has fallen to
the value of the now rising next half-cycle of rectified voltage. At that point the rectifiers turn on
again and deliver current to the reservoir until peak voltage is again reached. If the time constant,
CR, is large in comparison to the period of the ac waveform, then a reasonably accurate
approximation can be made by assuming that the capacitor voltage falls linearly. A further useful
assumption can be made if the ripple is small compared to the dc voltage. In this case the phase
angle through which the rectifiers conduct will be small and it can be assumed that the capacitor
is discharging all the way from one peak to the next with little loss of accuracy.[1]
Ripple voltage from a full-wave rectifier, before and after the application of a smoothing
capacitor

With the above assumptions the peak-to-peak ripple voltage can be calculated as:[2]

For a full-wave rectifier:

For a half-wave rectification:

where

is the peak-to-peak ripple voltage

is the current in the circuit
is the frequency of the ac power
is the capacitance

For the rms value of the ripple voltage, the calculation is more involved as the shape of the ripple
waveform has a bearing on the result. Assuming a sawtooth waveform is a similar assumption to
the ones above and yields the result:[3]

where

is the ripple factor

is the resistance of the load
Another approach to reducing ripple is to use a series choke. A choke has a filtering action and
consequently produces a smoother waveform with less high-order harmonics. Against this, the dc
output is close to the average input voltage as opposed to the higher voltage with the reservoir
capacitor which is close to the peak input voltage. With suitable approximations, the ripple factor
is given by:[4]

where

is the angular frequency

is the inductance of the choke

More complex arrangements are possible; the filter can be an LC ladder rather than a simple
choke or the filter and the reservoir capacitor can both be used to gain the benefits of both. The
most commonly seen of these is a low-pass -filter consisting of a reservoir capacitor followed
by a series choke followed by a further shunt capacitor.[5] However, use of chokes is deprecated
in contemporary designs for economic reasons. A more common solution where good ripple
rejection is required is to use a reservoir capacitor to reduce the ripple to something manageable
and then pass through a voltage regulator circuit. The regulator circuit, as well as regulating the
output, will incidentally filter out nearly all of the ripple as long as the minimum level of the
ripple waveform does not go below the voltage being regulated to.[6]

The majority of power supplies are now switched mode. The filtering requirements for such
power supplies are much easier to meet owing to the frequency of the ripple waveform being
very high. In traditional power supply designs the ripple frequency is either equal to (half-wave),
or twice (full-wave) the ac line frequency. With switched mode power supplies the ripple
frequency is not related to the line frequency, but is instead related to the frequency of the
chopper circuit.

Effects of ripple

Ripple is undesirable in many electronic applications for a variety of reasons:

The ripple frequency and its harmonics are within the audio band and will therefore be
audible on equipment such as radio receivers, equipment for playing recordings and
professional studio equipment.
The ripple frequency is within television video bandwidth. Analogue TV receivers will
exhibit a pattern of moving wavy lines if too much ripple is present.[7]
The presence of ripple can reduce the resolution of electronic test and measurement
instruments. On an oscilloscope it will manifest itself as a visible pattern on screen.
Within digital circuits, it reduces the threshold, as does any form of supply rail noise, at
which logic circuits give incorrect outputs and data is corrupted.
High-amplitude ripple currents shorten the life of electrolytic capacitors.[8]
Frequency-domain ripple

Ripple on a fifth order prototype Chebyshev filter

Ripple in the context of the frequency domain is referring to the periodic variation in insertion
loss with frequency of a filter or some other two-port network. Not all filters exhibit ripple, some
have monotonically increasing insertion loss with frequency such as the Butterworth filter.
Common classes of filter which exhibit ripple are the Chebyshev filter, inverse Chebyshev filter
and the Elliptical filter.[9] The ripple is not usually strictly linearly periodic as can be seen from
the example plot. Other examples of networks exhibiting ripple are impedance matching
networks that have been designed using Chebyshev polynomials. The ripple of these networks,
unlike regular filters, will never reach 0 dB at minimum loss if designed for optimum
transmission across the passband as a whole.[10]

The amount of ripple can be traded for other parameters in the filter design. For instance, the rate
of roll-off from the passband to the stopband can be increased at the expense of increasing the
ripple without increasing the order of the filter (that is, the number of components has stayed the
same). On the other hand, the ripple can be reduced by increasing the order of the filter while at
the same time maintaining the same rate of roll-off.[10]