L1 – AC Power Generation & Transmission

• Generator: • Graph:

• Direct current (DC): batteries, electronics • Alternating current (AC): electricity generation
& transmission to homes

• rms – _______________________________________________ values of voltage & current

• ex. If a resistor in a circuit is 91 Ω and the supply voltage has a peak value of 12 V, what is the Irms in the
circuit?

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 Load Type Circuit V/I Wave Forms

• __________________________________ – device that changes AC

o step down:
▪ enters homes, safe usage for electronics
o step up:
▪ power generation & transmission to homes
o ideal transformer:
▪ no power loss in going from primary → secondary

o real transformers:
▪ eddy currents & hysteresis currents produced due to magnetic flux changing in circuits
▪ R is wire in windings
▪ Flux linkage
▪ Physical vibration and noise of wire and windings

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 ▪ EMR
▪ Dielectric loss in materials used to insulate core and windings
•  iron core of a transformer is laminated
▪ lamination – layered & insulated from their layers

• transmission lines:

o power loss:
▪ heating effect of current
▪ R of metal used
▪ Dielectric losses
▪ Self inductance
▪ Power lost as heat during transformer step up/down of voltage due to eddy currents
▪ Power lost as heat in lines during current transmission due to internal resistance
o The gauge of wire is determined in a trade off between cost of large diameter wire & the cost of
power lost due to low diameter wire
o Long life of cable
o Cable metal:
▪ Density
▪ Tensile strength
▪ Chemical reactivity
▪ Use aluminium core to increase strength
• Ex. An ideal transformer has 100 turns in its primary coil & 850 turns in its secondary coil
a. Identify type
b. If a voltage of 110 V is applied to primary coil, what is the output voltage?

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• Why do we need transformers?
o Objective in electrical transmission: keep I as low as possible
o Power loss through heating
o Step up: sited close to power generation site
o Step down: sited close to power consumption sites
• Effect of EM waves on human health
o Frequency of transmitted & home-used power
o Photons emitted by ELF radiation are not energetic enough to ionize living cells
o Many studies have shown that ELF fields do not harm genetic material
o Studies on effect of ELF-induced currents in living cells are inconclusive

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Practice: AC Power Generation & Transmission
1. What is the RMS voltage across a light bulb that has an average power of 60 W when an alternating
current of peak value 0.36 A flows through it?

2. A country where the mains electricity has a rating (RMS) of 230 V.

a. What is its peak value?

b. What is the peak value of the current through an electric heater rated 2.15 kW in that country?

c. What is the RMS current through the heater?

d. If the same heater was taken to a country where the voltage was rated at 110 V, at what average
rate would it transfer energy?

3. An ideal transformer has 600 turns on its primary coil.

a. If it transforms 240 V to 12 V, how many turns are on the secondary coil?

b. When the secondary coil was connected to a resistor, the current was 480 mA. What was the value of
the resistance?

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 c. Calculate the power developed in the secondary circuit.

d. What was the current in the primary coil?

4. An ideal transformer with 36 turns on its primary coil is needed to step up a voltage from 110 V to 5.0
kV.
a. How many turns should be wound on the secondary coil?

b. If the input current was measured to be 0.55 A, what was the output current and power?

5. A mobile phone charger transformers 110 V to 3.8 V.

a. If there are 2000 turns on the primary coil, how many turns should there be on the secondary coil?

b. If the output power of the charger is 0.58 W, what is the current in the secondary coil?

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 c. If the primary coil current is 5.9 mA, what is the efficiency of the charger?

d. What power would be dissipated by the transformer?

e. How would you know if a mobile phone charger was inefficient?

6. A small town requires an average of 635 kW of electrical power and is supplied by a transmission line of
total resistance 0.76 Ω. Calculate the power loss in the cables if the voltage used is: (a) 1000 V; (b)
250,000 V.

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 L2 – Rectification

• Power transmission is exclusively AC

• Home-use power is DC
• Diode – semi-conducting component that allows current to pass through it in only one
direction
• Symbol:
• Assumptions:
o Diode R is very small for currents flowing forward
o Diode R is very large for currents attempting to flow in opposite direction

• Full-wave rectification – requires diode bridge

• Diagrams: direction of I passing through the load is same
• Graph shows input AC voltage and output DC voltage after undergoing full-wave rectification
o Voltage still varies continuously but its an improvement from half-wave rectification

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 Practice: AC & Rectification

1. A voltage-time graph for an alternating current is given below.

(a) Determine the period, T, of the graph. That is, how long does it take for the graph to complete
one full cycle. The unit for period is s.

(b) Determine the frequency, f, of the graph. That is, how many cycles are completed per second
(e.g. f = 1/T). The unit for frequency is s-1 or Hz (hertz).

(c) What is the peak voltage from the graph?

(d) What is the graph’s RMS voltage?

(e) Suppose the maximum power provided in this circuit is 0.25 W. What are the peak and RMS
values of current?

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2. A voltage-time graph for an alternating current is displayed below.

(a) On the axes below, sketch the output DC voltage if it were to undergo half-wave rectification.

(b) On the axes below, sketch the output DC voltage if it were to undergo full-wave rectification.

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A circuit that consists of four diodes and a resistor is shown.
3. Label the top AC power supply terminal with a (+), and with a red pencil
trace the positive current through the circuit all the way to the load
resistor and the correct DC output terminal.
3. ___See figure___

4. Label the bottom AC power supply terminal with a (–), and with a green pencil trace the negative
current through the circuit all the way to the load resistor and the correct DC output terminal.
4. ___See figure___

5. If the AC power supply now reverses its polarity, determine which output terminal is (+) and
which is
(–). 5. TOP is_______
BOTTOM is_______

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 L3 – Capacitance

➢ Capacitance – ability to store charge

• Capacitor – device that stores electric charge

o 2 separated parallel plates
o Between plates: air, vacuum, or non-conductive material
o Symbol:
o Parallel plate capacitor vs electrolytic capacitor
• Ex.
o Switch is at Position A, e− attracted to
positive terminal of battery
o e− withdrawn from left capacitor plate 
build up of positive charge
o e− repelled by the negative terminal of
battery will build up on right capacitor
plate
o As charge builds up on capacitor, charge
movement becomes difficult because plates
will oppose movement of charge

o Steady charge on plates is reached when the voltage across the plates is due to
charges becoming equal to the terminal voltage across battery
o At this point, with no PD between capacitor and battery, no more charge will flow
o Capacitor can now be discharged by connecting switch to position B
o Current will flow in opposite direction as positive charges on positive capacitor
plate become attracted to the negative charges on negative capacitor plate

• Charging and discharging is quick because no R in circuit

• Charge does not flow directly across plates of capacitor
o If it does, its due to extremely high voltages applied to circuit: breakdown
• Amount of charge on plate:
o Tends to be small
o Dependent on:
▪ PD
▪ Area of plate
▪ Separation distance of plates

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 • Formula:

• Dielectric materials:
o Used to increase capacitance of an object
o Contains polar molecules

o Dielectric becomes polarized and orients itself

o Polarized dielectric will create its own electric field:

o Electric field between 2 plates:

• Uses of capacitors:
o Smooth out voltage
o Store small amounts of energy
o Tuning circuits
o Timing circuits
o Filtering out direct currents in an AC circuit
o Maintain voltage in event of power failure
• 2 ways to increase capacitance:
o Increase area over which charge can be stored
o Decrease distance between plates
• Dielectric reduces charge leakage that can occur through air or vacuum

➢ Energy stored in charged capacitor

• Work done on charge:

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 • Q & V do not remain constant during operation of capacitor
• Energy transferred =

➢ Capacitors in Series and Parallel

• Parallel:

• Series:

• Note: series/parallel formulae for capacitance are reversed from those of resistance
• Ex. A 1.50 V cell is connected to a 275 μF capacitor.
a. How much charge is stored in capacitor plates:
b. What value should a single replacement capacitor have in this circuit?
c. From (b), how much charge has the battery placed on capacitors?
d. What value should a single replacement capacitor have in this circuit?

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➢ Discharging a Capacitor Through Resistance
• Resistor-Capacitor (RC) Series Circuit
o Circuit can be charged very quickly
o Switch: set to position A
▪ No resistor to slow down current
o Switch to position B
▪ Capacitor discharges at slower rate
than it was charged
▪ Discharge time depends on values of C
&R

o Graph: current discharged from capacitor as function of time

▪ Current drops most quickly at start
▪ Rate of change of current begins to decrease so
current drop not as significant as time goes on
▪ Amount of charge remaining on capacitor
decreases, forces on electrons decrease in
proportion
▪ Exponential change: (decrease) decay
• Charge and PD obeys same relationship as
current

o Time constant
▪ If a value is decaying exponentially, it will never actually =0

▪ Ex. The voltage across a discharging capacitor falls from 10V to 3.7 V in a
time of 76 s. If the resistance of the circuit was 2.8 kΩ, what was the value of
the capacitor?

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• Equations for capacitor discharge:

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 Practice: Capacitance
1. A standard value for a capacitor used in electronic circuits is rated at 470 μF, 15 V. What will be the
charge on this capacitor if it connected to a 12 V supply?

2. Calculate the potential difference needed between parallel plates of area 47.6 cm2 in order that a
charge of 1.00 nC will accumulate on each plate when the separation of the plates is 2.46 mm in air.

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3. Determine the capacitance of parallel plates of area 4.9 cm2 when polythene of relative permittivity
2.25 and thickness 0.18 mm is sandwiched between the plates.

4. When a pair of parallel plates with an insulator sandwiched between them has a potential
difference of 1550 V applied across them, a charge of 3.7 μC accumulated on each of the plates.
Determine the permittivity of the insulator if it had a thickness of 0.074 mm and the area of the
plates was 15.8 cm2.

5. A layer of aluminum oxide used to make a capacitor is 2.3 × 10-7 m thick. If the plates of a 1.0 μF
capacitor have an area of 24 cm2, what is the dielectric constant of the aluminum oxide?

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 Practice: Energy in a Capacitor
1. Determine the energy stored in a 400 pF capacitor rated for 1.5 V.

2. Determine the capacitance of a capacitor if it is rated for 2.35 V and can store 7.82 × 10-8 J of energy.

3. Determine the voltage rating on a 4800 μF capacitor if it can store 95.2 mJ of energy.

4. For the following charge-potential difference graph, determine the capacitance of the capacitor
and the energy stored in the
capacitor.

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 Practice: Series/Parallel Capacitors
1. Suppose you have four capacitors rated as follows: 200 μF, 300 μF, 600 μF, and 850 μF.
(a) Determine the total capacitance if they are all in parallel.

(b) Determine the total capacitance if they are all in series.

2. Find the equivalent capacitance for the following circuit:

3. For the following circuit:

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(a) Determine the equivalent capacitance.

(b) Find the total charge for the circuit.

(c) Determine the charge on each capacitor.

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 Practice: Discharging RC
1. First, get some practice with your calculator working with the exponential function, ex. On your
calculator, this function is marked ex (for a TI-8X model, 2nd Function + LN).

(a) e1 = (d) e-2 =

(b) e0 = (e) eln(5) =

(c) e-1 = (f) eln(e) =

What do you notice about the answers for (e) and (f)?

2. Now, get some practice with your calculator working with the natural logarithm function, ln(x)
(pronounced “lawn x” or “lawn of x”). On your calculator, this function is marked LN.

(a) ln(10) = (d) ln(1) =

(b) ln(-1) = (e) ln(e67) =

(c) ln(2) = (f) ln(e-2) =

What do you notice about the answers for (e) and (f)?

3. Determine the time constant for an RC circuit with a 2.0 kΩ resistor and a 0.25 mF capacitor.

4. If an RC circuit has a time constant of 82 ms and a capacitor of capacitance of 5.6 μF, what is the
value of the resistor in the circuit?

5. Show that the SI unit for time constant is seconds (i.e. derive it).

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6. The charge on a capacitor falls from 42 μC to 28 μC in 10 s as it discharges through a 68 kΩ resistor.
Determine the resistance of the resistor.

7. The potential difference across a 1000 μF capacitor was observed and after 80 s, it had fallen to 2.3
V. If the resistance of the circuit was 0.10 MΩ, what was the initial value of the potential difference?

8. When a 680 μF capacitor discharged through an unknown resistance, the current fell from 3.3 mA
to 1.9 mA in 30 s. Determine the value of the resistance.

9. A very keen Physics 35 IB student wants to determine the time constant for an RC circuit. The
student collected the following data:
time (ms) Current
(mA)
10.0 72.3
20.0 65.0
30.0 57.8

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 40.0 53.1
50.0 46.6
60.0 42.5
70.0 38.8
80.0 33.7
90.0 31.2
100.0 27.4
The equation that governs the current remaining on the capacitor during a discharge is:
t
−
I = I 0e 

(a) Show that, through an application of natural logarithms, the above equation can be written as:
t
ln I = ln I 0 −


(b) Complete the table below.

time (ms) Natural logarithm Current

of current (mA)
10.0 72.3
20.0 65.0
30.0 57.8
40.0 53.1
50.0 46.6
60.0 42.5
70.0 38.8
80.0 33.7
90.0 31.2
100.0 27.4
(c) On the graph below, plot the natural logarithm of the current versus the time. Once you make a
plot, draw a line of best fit. Your data should be roughly linear.

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(d) From your graph, determine the time constant, τ, and the initial value of the current, I0.

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