LABORATORY ACTIVITY # 6

Charging and Discharging of RC Circuit

I. Objective
● To develop an understanding for the behaviour of RC Circuit
● To understand the concept of a time constant and use it to find the capacitance
● To be able to analyse non-linear data.

II. Theory Overview

In a simple RC circuit, a resistor and a capacitor are connected in series with a battery and a switch. See
Fig. 2. When the switch is in position 1 as shown in Fig. 2(a), charge on the conductors builds to a
maximum value after some time. When the switch is thrown to position 2 as in Fig. 2(b), the battery is no
longer part of the circuit and, therefore, the charge on the capacitor cannot be replenished. As a result the
capacitor discharges through the resistor. If we wish to examine the charging and discharging of the
capacitor, we are interested in what happens immediately after the switch is moved to position 1 or
position 2, not the later behaviour of the circuit in its steady state. The mathematical representation of that
describe that charging behaviour is:
Eq. 1 𝑄(𝑡) = 𝑄𝑚𝑎𝑥 (1 − 𝑒 −𝑡/𝜏 )
𝜏 = 𝑅𝐶

where; Q(t) is the charge or capacitor at any time t, Qmax is the most charge the capacitor can hold, and τ
is the time constant which governs how quickly the charging and discharging occurs. Since the voltage
across the capacitor plates is directly proportional to the charge, ΔV = Q/C, we note that the voltage
across the capacitor as function of time is given by
Eq. 2 ∆𝑉(𝑡) = ∆𝑉𝑓(1 − 𝑒 −𝑡/𝜏 )---------Charging (Figure 1a)
These expressions describe the charging behaviour of the RC circuit. When the capacitor is discharging
the voltage across the capacitor as a function of time is described by the relation
Eq. 3 ∆𝑉(𝑡) = ∆𝑉𝑜 𝑒 −𝑡/𝜏 )---------Discharging (Figure 1b)
where; ΔVo is the voltage across the capacitor at t=0, when the capacitor has just started discharging.

Figure 1
III. Equipment
(1) Oscilloscope model
(1) Function generator model
(1) Dual DC power supply model
(1) DMM model

IV. Components
Resistor: ___________
Capacitor: __________
Switch: _______
VI. Schematics:

Figure 2
VII. Procedure

a. Measurement of Long time constant

1. Charge the capacitor by connecting it to a 9 Volt power supply. This should take only a few
milliseconds for the voltage reading to go beyond 9V.
2. Disconnect the supply and click the Record the time using stopwatch, when the voltmeter
reads exactly 9 V (i.e. Vo = 9V ) record the time from the second column of the table on your data sheet.
Then record subsequent times for voltages from 8.0 V- 2.0 V in one volt increments, subtracting to find
the elapsed times. Recharge the capacitor and repeat as often as necessary. Create a two-column data
table. The column for V(t) and the second column for elapsed time. Be sure to record the values of
capacitance and resistance (C and R) for use later.
3. Repeat using step 1 and 2 using oscilloscope. Make use of cursor button to determine the time
4. Compare the results in DMM and Oscilloscope

b. Measurement of Short time constant

1. In this part, we measure the short time constant of another RC circuit by continuously charging and
discharging the capacitor. We accomplish this by connecting the RC combination to a power supply
(function generator) producing a square wave voltage pattern.
2. Using the Capacimeter and an Ohmmeter, Choose capacitance and resistance of the small capacitor and
the resistor given for this part (nominal values 10 nF and 12 kΩ, respectively). Make sure you connect the
input of the oscilloscopes CH1 to the point between the capacitor and resistor in the circuit.
3. Switch on the function generator and set it to 900 Hz. Turn on the digital oscilloscope and adjust the
vertical and horizontal positioning knob, the time/div scale, and the V/div scale for Channel 1 until you
obtain the charging/discharging trace. Press the autoset button on the upper right of the oscilloscope if it
takes you more than a few minutes to get a display.
4. Now record the time (t) it takes for the voltage of the capacitor to reach 63% of the highest voltage.
Similarly, record the time when the discharging voltage decreases 63% from its highest voltage. These
two values should be roughly identical. Find the average and use this as the experimental time constant.
5. Plot the oscilloscope trace and include it in your laboratory report. Illustrate in your sketch how you
obtained the time constant and the values you used.
6. Monitor the voltage applied from the function generator using the oscilloscope probe and any other
provided cables (via Ch 2). Use the autoset function on the oscilloscope and see if you can reproduce the
display shown in Figure 4. This will require moving one of the channels vertically to align it with the
other channel. The amplitudes should match. Switch to 4.0 kHz for the frequency of the function
generator and note what happens to the voltage across the capacitor.
VII. Data Tables and Graph
Long time:
Table 1:Charging
ΔV (V) Time (s) ΔV/ΔVf -ln[(ΔVf – ΔV)/ ΔVf]

Table 2: Discharging
ΔV (V) Time (s) ΔV/ΔVo -ln(ΔV/ΔVo )

Short time:
Table 3: Charging
ΔV (V) Time (s) ΔV/ΔVf -ln[(ΔVf – ΔV)/ ΔVf]

Table 4: Discharging
ΔV (V) Time (s) ΔV/ΔVo -ln(ΔV/ΔVo )

VIII. Questions

Long time:
1. Equation 1 can be written as ln[ΔVf -V (t) ]= lnΔVf –t/τ . This means that if we plot
-ln[ΔVf -V (t) ]= lnΔVf –t/τ versus t, the slope will correspond to -1/τ and will show straight line graph.
Find the natural logarithm of V(t) from your data and plot lnΔV(t) versus t. and -ln[(ΔVf – ΔV)/ ΔVf])
versus t

2. Similarly, equation 2 can be written as lnΔV (t) = lnΔVo –t/τ . This means that if we plot -
ln(ΔV/ΔVo) versus t, the slope will correspond to -1/τ and will show straight line graph. Find the natural
logarithm of V(t) from your data and plot lnΔV(t) versus t. and -ln(ΔV/ΔVo) versus t.

3. Find the slope of the best-fit line and thus obtain the experimentally measured value of the time
constant. Compare the time constant obtained from this slope with the predicted value of τ using τ = RC
and the values of R and C obtained previously.
4. What is the percent error between accepted and experim
ental values of the capacitance?

Short time:
1. Compare your measured value with the product of RC obtained from the individual values of R and C
measured earlier and equation τ = RC.
2. Using Equation 3, show the mathematical reasoning behind why the time constant, τ, represents a 37%
decrease in the initial voltage for a discharging capacitor.

IX. Conclusion and Observation