HINDUSTANI KENDRIYA VIDYALAYA

PHYSICS INVESTIGATORY PROJECT

TOPIC: To study the charging and discharging behavior of a

capacitor through a resistor

Under the guidance of: Submitted by:

Mrs. NABALATA BORA MEDHI Name: PRIYAJEET MAZUMDER

Class: XII
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Section: C
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Roll no.:
 CERTIFICATE

This to certify that shri Priyajeet Mazumder a student of

class XII(Science) has successfully completed the project
work on the topic “TO STUDY THE CHARGING AND
DISCHARGING BEHAVIOR OF A CAPACITOR
THROUGH A RESISTOR” under the guidance of Mrs.
Nabalata Bora Medhi during the year 2025-26 in partial
fulfillment of All India Senior School Certificate Examination
(Practical) conducted by CBSE, New Delhi

Internal Signature External Signature Principal signature

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for the opportunity to
work on this project. It has helped me gain a deeper
understanding of the topic and enhanced my knowledge and
skills.
While preparing this project, I was able to explore various
concepts in detail, which improved my research and analytical
abilities.
This project also gave me a chance to develop patience,
discipline, and time management while collecting information and
organizing it in a meaningful way. I am thankful for all the
resources and guidance that helped me complete this work
successfully.
I sincerely hope that this project meets the expectations and
serves its purpose of providing useful information on the chosen
topic.

Signature of Student
 AIM
To study the charging and discharging
behavior of a capacitor through a resistor
 INTRODUCTION
An R-C circuit is a circuit containing a resistor and capacitor in series to a
power source. Such circuits find very important applications in various
areas of science and in basic circuits which act as building blocks of
modern technological devices. It should be really helpful if we get
comfortable with the terminologies charging and discharging of
capacitors.

Charging of capacitor :
A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store
energy in an electric field. In the hydraulic analogy, charge carriers
flowing through a wire are analogous to water flowing through a pipe. A
capacitor is like a rubber membrane sealed inside a pipe. Water
molecules cannot pass through the membrane, but some water can move
by stretching the membrane.

The analogy clarifies a few aspects of capacitors:

 The flow of current alters the charge on a capacitor, just as the

flow of water changes the position of the membrane. More
specifically, the effect of an electric current is to increase the
charge of one plate of the capacitor and decrease the charge of
the other plate by an equal amount. This is just like how, when
water flow moves the rubber membrane, it increases the amount
of water on one side of the membrane and decreases the
amount of water on the other side.
  The more a capacitor is charged, the larger its voltage drop i.e.,
the more it "pushes back" against the charging current. This is
analogous to the fact that the more a membrane is stretched,
the more it pushes back on the water.

 Current can flow "through" a capacitor even though no

individual electron can get from one side to the other. This is
analogous to the fact that water can flow through the pipe even
though no water molecule can pass through the rubber
membrane. Of course, the flow cannot continue the same
direction forever; the capacitor will experience dielectric
breakdown, and analogously the membrane will eventually
break.

 The capacitance describes how much charge can be stored on

one plate of a capacitor for a given "push" (voltage drop). A very
stretchy, flexible membrane corresponds to a higher capacitance
than a stiff membrane.

 A charged-up capacitor is storing potential energy, analogously

to a stretched membrane.

Discharging of capacitor :
Using hydraulic analogy only we can understand that when the capacitor
is charged the membrane is stretched, but now if you allow the water to
come out slowly and let the membrane relax, then it is called discharging
of capacitor. In other words, when the charge on each of the plates
becomes zero and the potential difference across its terminals drops to
zero. Below is a graphical description of capacitor as a pipe with a
membrane: -

 Relaxed membrane (uncharged)

 Stretched membrane (charged)

Materials required
1) Bread board

2) 100 μF Capacitor

3) 1 MΩ Resistor

4) Multi-meter

5) 9V Battery

6) Wire stripper, Connecting wires, Battery

connector

7) Stopwatch

THEORY
When a capacitor of capacitance C is connected in series with a
resistor of resistance R and then connected to a battery of EMF E it
gets charged but since some resistance has been introduced, this
charging process takes some time and hence the potential
difference between the plates of the capacitor varies as an
exponential function of time, i.e.
V α e xt
The circuit diagram for this experiment is given below:-

Applying Kirchhoff’s law in the above circuit during charging, i.e.

capacitor is connected to the battery
E–Vc –iR=0…………….. (i)

Vc=𝑄 𝐶

Putting above value in eq. (i)

Also Q=CV and Qo=CVo, where V and Vo are voltage at time t
and max voltage respectively
Therefore from eq (iii),
 this is the required expression.

[NOTE:- This is the charging equation only, for discharging equation

proceed the same way but only remove E from Kirchhoff law’s
equation].
Thus equation for discharging,

When RC=t, then equation becomes,

V=Vo(1−𝑒−1)

Which on solving gives

V=0.63Vo, i.e. the voltage on capacitor at time t=RC becomes 63%
of the max voltage, which means 63% of total charge has been
stored in the capacitor.
This product of R and C has been given a new name, i.e. time
constant and is denoted by τ, which means for any capacitor in RC
circuit 63% of total charge is stored at time constant.
In my experiment I have used a 100µF capacitor and a 1MΩ
resistor thus time constant = 100×10-6×106=100 sec.

PROCEDURE
i. Connect all the components in the breadboard as shown in
the following picture
ii. Now take multimeter leads and place them in the two
terminals .
iii. Before proceeding further we must have a bit of knowledge
about breadboard. A breadboard is a simple circuit building
device used to build temporary circuits just to test their
working. It is very simple to work with as it does not require
any soldering or attachment of components. The
components could be just pushed in the holes and
connections could be made easily. A straight line pattern of
holes resembles a wire and the arrangement of these holes
are shown below:-

iv. Now take the battery and connect its terminals across the
terminals of the capacitor and start the stop watch. Note the
readings at 20sec intervals and write them down.
[NOTE:- Reading the previous statement could be astonishing as it says that measure voltage
at 20sec interval but one could question that current move at very high speed so how could
one measure the changing readings! But believe me it wasn’t an easy task but since the
voltage depends on reciprocal of exponential function and as time passes by the changing
readings will get slowed down and even after infinite time the capacitor could not be charged
up to max voltage. Also since its time constant is 100 sec which is quite practical to measure at
and hence this experiment is very much justified].

v. Take 10 readings and if required the 20sec gap could be

increased because as the time passes by the change in
voltage becomes smaller and smaller.
vi.
vii. Now let the capacitor be charged up to 460 sec because
then it will become 99.99% charged [since we have a
limited time and we can’t wait for infinite time for it to charge
completely!]. Now remove the battery and now attach a wire
in place of the battery terminals and again note the
multimeter readings changing and record them.

viii. Plot a graph between voltage and time for charging as well
as discharging.

OBSERVATION
Graphs: Plot of voltage v/s time. Time on x-axis and voltage on y-axis
For charging

For discharging:-
 CALCULATION
Now since the graphs are very much similar to the graphs
of charging and discharging of capacitor.
At τ=100sec, during charging of capacitor the voltage on
capacitor is 5.69 volt as it is observed in the experiment.
Now using the charging formula:-

V=5.67≈5.69 which is achieved experimentally as well.

Similarly during discharging,

V=3.32≈3.30 which is achieved experimentally as well.

 CONCLUSION

Hence it is verified experimentally that 63% charge

is there on capacitor after time constant during
charging and 63% charge is lost at time constant
during discharging.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 [Link]
 [Link]
 [Link]
 N.C.E.R.T Physics part - 1 class 12