Applied Circuit Analysis

Chapter 9
Capacitance

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 Overview
• The next two chapters will introduce two new
linear circuit elements:
• The capacitor
• The inductor
• Unlike resistors, these elements do not
dissipate energy
• They instead store energy
• We will also look at how to analyze them in a
circuit

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 Capacitors
• A capacitor is a passive element
that stores energy in its electric
field
• It consists of two conducting
plates separated by an insulator
(or dielectric)
• The plates are typically
aluminum foil
• The dielectric is often air,
ceramic, paper, plastic, or mica

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 Capacitors II
• When a voltage source v is connected to the
capacitor, the source deposits a positive
charge q on one plate and a negative charge
–q on the other.
• The charges will be equal in magnitude
• The amount of charge is proportional to the
voltage:
q  Cv

• Where C is the capacitance

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 Capacitors III
• The unit of capacitance is the Farad (F)
• One Farad is 1 Coulomb/Volt
• Most capacitors are rated in picofarad
(pF) and microfarad (μF)
• Capacitance is determined by the
geometry of the capacitor:

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 Stored Energy
• The current passing into a capacitor
during charging for a time, t, can be
defined as:
CV
I
t

• The energy stored in the capacitor will

be:
1
W  CV 2
2

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 Electric Fields
• Capacitors store their energy in electric
fields
• The fields originate from the charges stored
on the plates.
• The electric flux, Ψ, between parallel plates
of area A with charge Q is:
 Q
• The electric flux density is:
 Q
D 
A A
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 Fields II
• The electric field strength E is inversely
proportional to the plate spacing.
V
E
d
• The field and the flux density are
related:
D E
•  is the permittivity of the dielectric

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 Fields III
• These relationships may be combined
in order to develop a formula for the
capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor
Q  DA  A
C   
V V Ed d

• Or
A
C
d

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 Capacitance Value
• As can be seen, geometry and
materials determine the value of the
capacitor:
– Larger surface area means bigger
capacitance.
– The smaller spacing between the plates
also increases capacitance
– Higher permittivity increases capacitance

10
 Dielectric Properties
• Here is a list of common materials and
their dielectric constants

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 Types of Capacitors
• The most common types of
capacitors are film capacitors
with polyester, polystyrene, or
mica.
• To save space, these are often
rolled up before being housed
in metal or plastic films
• Electrolytic caps (shown here)
have a very high capacitance

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 Types of Caps II
• Trimmer caps have a range of values
that they can be set to
• Variable air caps can be adjusted by
turning a shaft attached to a set of
moveable plates

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 Applications for Capacitors
• Capacitors have a wide range of
applications, some of which are:
– Blocking DC
– Passing AC
– Shift phase
– Store energy
– Suppress noise
– Start motors

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 Parallel Capacitors
• We learned with resistors that
applying the equivalent series
and parallel combinations can
simply many circuits.
• Starting with N parallel
capacitors, one can note that the
voltages on all the caps are the
same
• Applying KCL:

i  i1  i2  i3   iN

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 Parallel Capacitors II
• Taking into consideration the current voltage
relationship of each capacitor:
dv dv dv dv
i  C1  C2  C3   CN
dt dt dt dt
 N  dv dv
   Ck   Ceq
 k 1  dt dt

• Where
Ceq  C1  C2  C3   CN
• From this we find that parallel capacitors
combine as the sum of all capacitance

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 Series Capacitors
• Turning our attention to a
series arrangement of
capacitors:
• Here each capacitor shares the
same current
• Applying KVL to the loop:

v  v1  v2  v3   vN
• Now apply the voltage current
relationship

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 Series Capacitors II
t t t t
1 1 1 1
v   i   d  v1  t0    i   d  v2  t 0    i   d  v3  t0     i   d  v N t0 
C1 t0 C 2 t0 C3 t0 C N t0
 1 1 1 1 
t

 i   d  v1  t0   v2  t0   v3  t0    v N  t0 
C N  t0
    
 1
C C 2 C3
t
1
i   d  v  t0 
Ceq t0


• Where 1 1
 
1

1
 
1
Ceq C1 C2 C3 CN

• From this we see that the series combination

of capacitors resembles the parallel
combination of resistors.

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 Series and Parallel Caps
• Another way to think about the combinations of
capacitors is this:
• Combining capacitors in parallel is equivalent to
increasing the surface area of the capacitors:
• This would lead to an increased overall capacitance
(as is observed)
• A series combination can be seen as increasing the
total plate separation
• This would result in a decrease in capacitance (as is
observed)

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 Current Voltage Relationship
• Using the formula for the charge stored in a
capacitor, we can find the current voltage
relationship
• Take the first derivative with respect to time
gives:
dv
iC
dt

• This assumes the passive sign convention

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 Properties of Capacitors
• Ideal capacitors all have these characteristics:
• When the voltage is not changing, the current
through the cap is zero.
• This means that with DC applied to the terminals no
current will flow.
• Except, the voltage on the capacitor’s plates can’t
change instantaneously.
• An abrupt change in voltage would require an infinite
current!
• This means if the voltage on the cap does not equal
the applied voltage, charge will flow and the voltage
will finally reach the applied voltage.
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 Properties of capacitors II
• An ideal capacitor does not dissipate energy,
meaning stored energy may be retrieved later
• A real capacitor has a parallel-model leakage
resistance, leading to a slow loss of the
stored energy internally
• This resistance is typically very high, on the
order of 100 MΩ and thus can be ignored for
many circuit applications.

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 Charging Cycle
• Consider a battery
connected in series to a
capacitor and a resistor.
• Assume that the capacitor
is not charged at first.
• At t=0 the switch is
closed.

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 Charging II
• At any time the capacitor
voltage is:
vC  VS  VS  V0  et RC

• Where V0 is the initial

voltage.
• Since V0=0 this can be
written as:
vC  VS (1  et RC )

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 Charging III
• From this the charging current is:
vR VS t / RC
i  e
R R

• The time it takes to charge to 1/e of

the full charge, or 36.8% is called the
time constant  for the circuit.
  RC

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 Charging Current
• Once again we can determine the
charging current from the resistor’s
voltage drop
vR  VS  vC  VS  Vs (1  et / RC )  VS et / RC

• Or VS t / RC
iC  e
R

• As can be seen, the current decreases

towards zero as time goes on.

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 Discharging
• For discharging we
consider the source free RC
circuit shown here.
• The initial voltage on the
capacitor is V0.
• The resulting voltage as a
function of time is:
vC (t )  V0et /

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 Discharging II
• After five time constants, the
capacitor has discharged to less
than 1% of its starting value.
• This is regarded as the transient
time.
• The capacitor is typically
considered to be fully charged or
discharged after this amount of
time.

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 Troubleshooting
• Capacitors are the most common
component in a circuit to fail.
• Certain types, such as paper, molded
paper, and electrolytic are failure-
prone.
• Others, such as mica and ceramic
almost never need replacement.

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 Troubleshooting II
• Capacitors may fail as short or open
circuits.
• If a lead become disconnected
internally, the cap fails as an open.
• If the dielectric becomes compromised,
the failure will be as a short.
• A DMM may be used to identify
capacitors failed as shorts.

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 Troubleshooting III
• One should expect the resistance of the
capacitor to appear as an open on a
meter.
• It is important to note that for polarized
capacitors, the meter polarity must
match the capacitor’s otherwise the
cap may become damaged.

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