RC Time Constant

Aim: To investigate how the voltage across a resistor and a capacitor combination varies as
a function of time.

Theory: A capacitor can store electric charge. If the capacitor has a capacitance C and a
voltage V is applied across the capacitor the amount of charge stored by the capacitor Q is
given by:
Q=CV

At a time t the voltage is given by V ( t ) =I ( t ) R. For a current at a time t across a capacitor is:
Q(t)
I ( t )=
RC

Time constant for voltage decay across a capacitor is T =RC

Methodology: Determine the RC time constant of a resistor capacitor combination using

several methods.
Resistor is in parallel (2x100KΩ), so the total resistance 50kΩ. The capacitance of the two
parallel capacitors is measured to be 20µF (2x10µF).
For the second method, use an oscilloscope connected to the circuit shown below.

O = Voltmeter
T R T = Top switch
B C C = Capacitors
B = Battery
R = Resistor

Calculations:

Using the time constant equation T =RC we get T = (20x10-6 F) x (50x103 Ω) = 1s

1
From our graph of the linear voltage against time, we can use m= to can calculate the
RC
time constant, where RC time constant and m is the gradient from the trendline of our
graph:
1 1
RC = = =0.97 s
m (−1.0358)

Junaid Ahmad
 The uncertainty in our gradient can be worked out from:
∆m 1−R 2
m
=
√ n−2

Where n equals 2250 (readings) and R2 equals 0.998

1−(0.998)2
∆m
m
=
√
2250−2
∆ m ∆ RC
=9.43 ×1 0−4

=
m RC

∆ RC
=9.43 ×1 0−4
RC

Method 2: RC = 0.97 (± 9.14x10-4) s

Method 1: 1(±0.04) s (2% uncertainty per capacitor = 4%)

Analysis/Discussion:
From the results above we can deduce that method 2 is reasonably close to what we
predicted after having a value to compare with from method 1. Also the uncertainty is much
lower than the first method hence the result is much more accurate than method 1.

Conclusion:
In conclusion we have investigated the behaviour of voltage across a resistor and capacitor
combination varies as a function of time.

Junaid Ahmad