PHYSICS Lab Report RC Circuits ( well written )

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Report for Experiment #18 RC Circuits Shravya Nahar Lab Partner: Amanda Barbour, Daniel Bartles TA: Xinzhi Li 25th February, 2015Introduction In this experiment, capacitors are added to an RC ci... rcuits is used to study the resistorcapacitor combinations and their effect on voltage and current as the time passes and the in parallel and in resistor combinations. Investigation 1 was done to measure the time constant by finding the potential drop across a charging capacitor and a resistor. In Investigation 2, the time constant of discharging current was measured with the help of the finding the voltage while discharging current over time. In Investigation 3, the combination of capacitors in series and in parallel are tested. Voltages across both capacitors is measured in each experiment to find the rate of change of the voltage when the capacitors are put in series and when they are put in parallel. Investigation 1 For this experiment, you will need a 0.11F capacitor, a power supply, an electrical component box, 2 digital multimeters, 8 connecting wires, 2 alligator clips and a stopwatch. Set the power supply to 6V and connect it to a 0.11F capacitor and 1000Ω resistor in series. Connect one multimeter with the capacitor and another with the resistor. Record time t and the voltage across the capacitors and resistors. Do this for 5 minutes and measure the voltage every 10 seconds. Measure and record the voltage Vr across the resistor for every ten seconds. Plot the results of Vr vs. t on the graph. Use the trend line in order to determine the time constant of the resistor. Repeat the process for the voltage across the capacitor and determine the time constant of the capacitor. Average the two time constants and find the uncertainty in the average time constant. Use the average time constant to calculate the capacitance of the capacitor. [Show More]

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