Worksheet on Capacitors

A student needs to order a capacitor for a project. He sees this picture on a web site accompanied by this
information: capacitance tolerance ± 20%.
Taking the tolerance into account, show that

(a) the maximum charge a capacitor of this type can hold is about 0.2 C [2]

(b) the maximum energy it can store is about 1.5 J [2]

June 11 Question 13

A student sets up the circuit as shown in the diagram

(a) (i) She moves the switch S from X to Y.

Describe what happens to the capacitor [2]

(ii) On the axes below, sketch a graph to show how the current
in the ammeter varies with time. Take t = 0 as the time
when the switch touches Y. Indicate typical values of
current and time

(iii) Describe and explain what happens when the switch is

moved back to X [3]
 (b) The student wants to use this circuit to produce a short time delay of 0.20 s after the switch moves from X
to Y. Calculate the value of the potential difference across the capacitor after this time interval.
[3]

(c) A particular racing car has a mass of 800 kg and is travelling at 30 m s–1. It uses an ultracapacitor of
capacitance 2600 F charging to a potential difference of 2.5 V. Calculate the ratio of the energy stored
on the fully charged ultracapacitor to the kinetic energy of the car.
[3]

June 14 Question 18

A student is investigating capacitors. She uses the circuit below to check the capacitance of a capacitor labelled
2.2 μF which has a tolerance of ± 30%.

The switch flicks between contacts, X and Y, so that the capacitor charges and discharges f times per second

The capacitor must discharge fully through the resistor. Explain why 400Hz is a suitable value for f [3]

June 12 Question 16
A student was investigating the charge and discharge of a capacitor. He set up the following circuit

(a) Calculate the time constant for the circuit [2]

(b) The student wanted to plot a current-time graph as the capacitor charged, but found that the current changed too
rapidly for him to take readings. Instead, he modelled the experiment using a spreadsheet. The switch was closed
at time t= 0 s. V is the potential difference across the capacitor

Explain how the value in cell B5 is calculated [2]

(c) Some of the data from the spreadsheet has been plotted on a graph of current I against time t

(i) Plot the missing points and draw a line of best fit
[2]

(ii) Use the graph to determine a second value for the time
constant [2]

(iii) Suggest how the student might change his spreadsheet to

give a more accurate model of the charging of the capacitor

[1]

(d) An alternative method of determining the time constant is to use a straight line graph. State and explain the
variables that the student should plot and how he should determine the time constant from this graph [3]

JAN 2015 QUESTION 15