Techno Academic Highr Sec.

School Lucknow
(AFFILIATED TO C.B.S.E)

Physics- INVESTIGATORY PROJECT ON THE TOPIC:

"Charging & discharging of capacitor in r-c circuit"

Submitted to: Submitted by:

“Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true
education.”

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project work titled "Charging

& discharging of capacitor in R-c circuit" submitted by Saurabh

Maurya (class XIIth - PCB) in partial fulfilment of the credit

for the physics project evaluation from “Techno Academic
higher Sec. School, Lucknow”,as Prescribed by CBSE ,is
the bonafide work of the student done under the
guidance and supervision of M .Nid Ma , Physics
Teacher, during session 2020-2021, as a project report.
NAME: SUBJECT:

ROLL NO. : CLASS:

DATE: SCHOOL:

Examiner's sign.

Principal's sign. Teacher's sign.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Our project can never begin without you, dear
GOD.Rather than saying “thank you” to you, you

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know that we feel like saying ‘I love you’, to you,
always.We must say thanks to our parents who
provided us with sufficient money and help in
making this project.Classmates are the real
foundation of the project done by us. Thank you
very much.

Special thanks to our Principal, our Vice

Principal and our chemistry teachers,Mrs.Nida
Mam,who gave support to us and the library
which provides all useful books related to this
project.

Next on our thank list are our friends, teachers

who really showered constructive feedback and
suggestions without which this project would not
have been in present form.

Than yo!....
Inde
S.n Topic Pag n. Remark

1 Introduction 5
2 Aim 6
3 Apparatus 6

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4 Theory 7
5 Charging & 8
discharging of
capacitor
6 Time constant 9
7 Procedure 11
8 Observation 13
9 Conclusion 15
10 References 15

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Introduction: -

Capacitance

A capacitor is a device that stores

electrical energy in an electric field. It is a
passive electronic component with two
terminals. The effect of a capacitor is
known as capacitance.

Formula:
q = CV
q = charge C =
capacitance
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V = voltage
Aim: -
To verify that 63% charge is stored in a capacitor in a R-C
circuit at its time constant and 63% charge remains when
capacitor is discharged and hence plot a graph between
voltage and time

Apparatus: -
1. Breadboard

2. 100µF capacitor
3. 1 MΩ resistor

4. Multimeter

5. 9V battery

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 6. Wire stripper, connecting wires, battery connector and
stopwatch

Theory:-
If we go on pouring a liquid into a vessel, the level of the liquid goes on rising.
Similarly, if we go on giving charge to a conductor, its potential keeps on rising.
Thus:

Charge (Q) ∝ potential (V)

Or

Q = CV … (1)

Here, C is a constant of proportionality and is called the capacitance or capacity

of the conductor.

From equation …(1),

C = Q / V … (2)

The capacitance of a conductor is thus defined as the ratio of the charge on it to

its potential.

Further, let V = 1, Therefore from Eqn. (1),

Q = C or C = Q.

The capacitance of a conductor is thus numerically equal to the amount of

charge required to raise its potential through unity.

Chargin An Dischargin Of A Capacito Throug A Resisto

Consider a circuit having a capacitance C and a resistance R which
are joined in series with a battery of emf ε through a Morse key K as
shown in the figure.

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 Charging of capacitor:

When the key is pressed, the capacitor begins to store charge.

If at any time during charging, I is the current through the
circuit and Q is the charge on the capacitor, then

Potential difference across resistor = IR, and

Potential difference between the plates of the capacitor = Q/C

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Tim Constan
The dimensions of CR are those of time. Further, if CR < < 1, Q
will attain its final value rapidly and if CR > > 1, it will do so
slowly. Thus, CR determines the rate at which the capacitor
charges (or discharges) itself through a resistance. It is for this

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 reason that the quantity CR is called the time constant or more
appropriately, the capacitive time constant of the circuit.

If t = τ, then from eqn. (4),

Thus, theoretically, the charge on the capacitor will attain its

maximum value only after infinite time
Procedur : -

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(i) Connect all the components in the breadboard as shown in
the following picture,

(ii) Now take multimeter leads and place them in the

two terminalsshaped like
(iii) Beforeproceeding further we must have a bit
of knowledge about breadboarding. A breadboard is a simple
circuit building device used to build temporary circuits just to
test their working. It is very simple to work with as it does not
require any soldering or attachment of components. The
components could be just pushed in the holes and
connections could be made easily. A straight line pattern of
holes resembles a wire and the arrangement of these holes
are shown below: -
(iv) Now take the battery and connect its terminals across the
terminals of the capacitor and start the stopwatch. Note the
readings at 20sec intervals and write them down. [NOTE:
Reading the previous statement could be astonishing as it
says that measure voltage at 20sec interval but one could
question that current moves at very high speed so how could

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 one measure the changing readings! But believe me it wasn’t
an easy task but since the voltage depends on reciprocal of
exponential function and as time passes by the changing
readings will get slowed down and even after infinite time the
capacitor could not be charged up to max voltage. Also since
its time constant is 100sec which is quite practical to measure
at and hence this experiment is very much justified.]. Take 10
readings and if required the 20sec gap could be increased
because as the time passes by the change in voltage becomes
smaller and smaller.
(v) Now let the capacitor be charged up to 460 secs because then
it will become 99.99% charged [since we have a limited time
and we can’t wait for infinite time for it to charge
completely!]. Now remove the battery and now attach a wire
in place of the battery terminals and again note the
multimeter readings changing and record them.
(vi) Plot a graph between voltage and time for charging as well as
discharging.

2. Observations and
calculations: -
Sn Multimeter Multimeter reading Time ( in
o. reading while while seconds)
charging( in volt) discharging(in
volt)

1. 0 8.95 0
2. 1.65 7.34 20
3. 3.02 6.00 40
4. 4.11 4.91 60
5. 4.90 4.03 80
6. 5.69 3.30 100 (τ)
7. 6.72 2.21 140
8. 7.00 1.54 180
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 9. 8.12 0.74 250
10 8.40 0.43 300
.
Graph: -
Plot of voltage v/s time
Time on x-axis and voltage on y-axis For changing

The original graphs for discharging and charging respectively are:

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 Calculations: -

Now since the graphs are very much similar to the graphs of charging
and discharging of capacitors.

At τ=100sec, during charging of the capacitor the voltage on the

capacitor is 5.69 volt as it is observed in the experiment. Now using the
charging formula: -
−t

V=9(1- e t )

1
V=9(1- e )

≈ 5.69
V=5.67 which is achieved experimentally as well.

Similarly, during discharging,

V=9* e−1

V=3.32≈3.30 which is achieved experimentally as well

Conclusion: -

Hence it is verified experimentally that 63% charge is there on

capacitor after time constant during charging and 63% charge is
lost at time constant during discharging.

References: -
Google.co.in
En.wikipedia.org
Concepts of physics part 2 by H.C. Verma
This project is completely created with the help of google docs apk
and the graphs, equations and observation tables are also created
with the help of the same.
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