TAS Experimental Worksheet

Experiment P: Charging a capacitor at a constant rate

Marks : ______________
Aim: To investigate how the charge on a capacitor is related to the p.d. applied across
it by charging the capacitor at a constant rate.
Apparatus:
o Capacitor (electrolytic type) 500 µ F
o Microammeter 100 µ A
o Clip component holder
o Stop-watch
o CRO
o Connecting leads
Theory:
From definition, the capacitor C of a capacitor is found from
C = Q/V
Where Q is the charge stored on the capacitor and V is the potential difference across
it.
⇒ Q = CV
dQ dV
⇒ =C
dt dt
dQ
If a capacitor is charged up at a constant rate, i.e. = I , where I is a constant.
dt
dV I
Then = is also constant.
dt C
Hence the potential difference across the capacitor increases linearly with time.
Procedure
1. The circuit was connected as shown in the figure below. The CRO was set to
d.c. and the sensitivity to 1 V/cm.
 2. The time base was set to any high value so that a steady horizontal trace is
displayed. The trace was shifted to the bottom of the screen.
3. The capacitor was shorted out by connecting a lead across it and adjust the
100 k Ω potentiometer for a suitable current, say 80 µ A.
4. Shorting lead was removed and the capacitor will charge up. Note what
happens to the microammeter reading and the CRO trace.
5. The procedure was repeated but this time start the stop-watch and
continuously adjust the potentiometer to keep the current constant as the
capacitor charges up.
6. The times was measured for the CRO trace to move up by 1 cm, 2 cm, 3 cm,
etc. These are the times for the p.d. across the capacitor to reach 1V, 2V, 3V,
etc.
7. The results was tabulated.
Results and discussion
8 Describe what happens to the microammeter reading and the CRO trace as the
capacitor is being charged up.
The microammeter reading increase momentarily, then it decrease to zero
in a few second.
After the capacitor had been completely charged,the CRO trace is a
horizontal line, which continuously move up.

9 Tabulate the times for the p.d. across the capacitor to reach 1 V, 2 V, 3 V, etc. as
below:

P.d. across 1 2 3 4 5 6
capacitor V/V
Time t/s 3.86 8.93 12.37 16.37 21.78 27.5

10 Plot a graph of p.d. across the capacitor against time.

How is the p.d. related to the time?
p.d. is directly proportional to time.
11 Deduce a relationship between the charge on the capacitor and the p.d. across it.
From the graph it is found that p.d. is directly proportional to time.
Since Q=CV => V=Q/C
Therefore if V across the capacitor is directly proportional to t, Q is directly
proportional to time as current was constant.

Conclusion
We can find out that the p.d. across the capacitor is directly
proportional to the time needed. Given that the charging current
is constant.

Sharing
The experiment is much easier than the last one , but we
encountered some obstacles in connecting wires , as usual , we
messed up positive and negative terminals and couldn’t conduct
it smoothly. At last, we had to call for help.
Suggestion
and there may be some personal error , for example counting the
time taken for the capacitor be charged to extent value was
rather inaccurate. Perhaps, we could conduct the experiment
several times and compute out the average value.
Reference list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor
http://www.elecsound.cn/Ceramic-Capacitor.htm