Capacitor Lab 3

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Indiana University, Purdue University, Indianapolis *

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21900

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Electrical Engineering

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Apr 3, 2024

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Capacitor Lab: Basics : Inquiry into Capacitor Design (This lesson is designed for a student working remotely.) This lab uses the Capacitor Lab: Basics simulation from PhET Interactive Simulations at University of Colorado Boulder, under the CC-BY 4.0 license. https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/capacitor-lab-basics/latest/capacitor-lab-basics_en.html Learning Goals: Students will be able to: ● Identify the variables that affect the capacitance and how each affects the capacitance. ● Determine the relationships between charge, voltage, and stored energy for a capacitor. ● Relate the design of the capacitor system to its ability to store energy. ● Explain how to use a capacitor to light a bulb. ● Describe what happens as charge drains away from a capacitor into a light bulb Develop your understanding: Open the Capacitance screen, then explore to develop your own ideas about how a capacitor is designed. Explain your understanding: Use your own words and captured images from the simulation to show you can: 1. Identify what features of a capacitor can be maximized or minimized to make a capacitor with the greatest capacitance. Separation minimized and Plate Area maximized a. What features of the simulation did you use to help you? Separation, Plate Area, Capacitance value in table, bar graph, voltage 4/7/2020 Loeblein https://phet.colorado.edu/en/contributions/update-success/5449 page1

2. Design experiments to find the relationships between charge, voltage, and stored energy for a capacitor. Summarize your experimental procedures and findings. Initially, I reduced the separation between the plates and increased the area of each plate. We discovered that under those certain circumstances, the capacitance is at its maximum. The voltage was the only factor left, and it needed to be increased. I then intended to see whether there would be a change in the top or bottom plate charge, but there was not. The stored energy would remain same whether the top plate was either positive or negative. a. What features of the simulation did you use to help you? The bar graph, plate area, plate separation, battery voltage 3. If you wanted to design a capacitor system to store the greatest energy, what would you use? increase the plate area to its maximum size and decrease the separation of plates, maximum voltage input Develop your understanding: Explore the Light Bulb screen to investigate how to use a capacitor to turn on a light bulb. Explain your understanding: Use your own words and captured images from the simulation to show you know how to use a capacitor to light a bulb. We must charge the capacitor before we can use it to power the lightbulb. Before I hooked the capacitor to the lightbulb, I utilized the settings we previously discovered to obtain the maximum amount of stored energy. Pictures one and two depict the charging of the capacitor and the powering of the lightbulb. 4/7/2020 Loeblein https://phet.colorado.edu/en/contributions/update-success/5449 page2

4. What are the required components to use a capacitor to light a bulb and how does the system operate? A diode, which consists of a positively charged anode plate and a negatively charged cathode plate. The circuit consists of a lightbulb, a capacitor, and a voltage source to supply power. 5. How would using a capacitor to light a bulb compare to using just a battery as shown: With the battery, the light bulb would be powered substantially longer. Compared to the battery, the capacitor would release energy rapidly. This is so that the smoothing of electrical fluctuations is the primary function of capacitors in circuits. When the constant voltage at the input isn't sufficient enough, we may additionally utilize capacitors to increase the initial voltage. a. Use Circuit Construction Kit Intro screen to test your ideas and provide supporting evidence. The circuit on the left, the voltage was maintained at 9 volts using only wire, a battery, and a lightbulb. This would indicate that the battery will have a significantly longer lifespan than a capacitor. All a capacitor does in an electrical system is control the voltage. The circuit on the right, which consists of a paperclip, resistor, battery, and light bulb, was made purely for fun to see what the results would be. Because of the resistor at 10 ohms, the circuit remained stable at 30 volts even though the battery had a 60-volt charge. Because the resistor tries to stop electricity from passing through it, the light bulb's output voltage is lower than the battery's power. 4/7/2020 Loeblein https://phet.colorado.edu/en/contributions/update-success/5449 page3

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6. Describe what happens as charge drains away from a capacitor into a light bulb. Include the use of as many tools in the simulation as possible in your observations. In a sense, you would have a "RC circuit" since a capacitor can power a lightbulb. You might be able to control the voltage to the lightbulb by adding a resistor, as we already discussed that a capacitor would discharge more quickly than a battery. But if you do that, the lightbulb will not appear as bright. It is also important to understand that the majority of the energy lost by a lightbulb is released as heat, which is regarded as lost energy in an electrical circuit. a. What features of the simulation did you use to help you? I used wire, a battery, resistor, and paperclip. From the first simulation I used the graph with stored energy, capacitance, maximum plate area, minimum plate separation as seen in the above photos from circuit construction kit. 7. Research to find a practical application where the energy stored in a capacitor is used. (cite references) Admin. (2023, January 13). Energy stored in a capacitor derivation, formula and applications . BYJUS. https://byjus.com/physics/energy-stored-in-a-capacitor/#:~:text=Applications%20of %20Capacitor%20Energy,-Following%20are%20a&text=A%20defibrillator%20uses%20the %20energy,energy%20stored%20in%20the%20capacitors . Part 2: The capacitor is the hidden star of electronic circuits-role #1: Storing electricity . Learn about Technology with TDK. (n.d.). https://www.tdk.com/en/tech mag/capacitor/02#:~:text=The%20strobe%20lights%20in%20such,is%20built%20into%20the %20camera. 4/7/2020 Loeblein https://phet.colorado.edu/en/contributions/update-success/5449 page4