Question

My lab was about an RC circuit and RL circuit, and talking about/showing the relationship of voltage and current for a capacitor and inductor by using a theoretically calculated tau in comparison to an experimentally found tau (using current/voltage calculated from 36.8% of initial value) from a simulation and experimentally found tau from the slope of the natural log of the current in the RC circuit and voltage in the RL circuit versus time from the same simulation.

My theoretical and experimental values calculated to pretty much 0% error.

I talked about sources of error and uncertainty. I talked about my specific data points. I'm just trying to finish my lab conclusion with two questions I haven't answered in this lab's data? Because "The point of the questions is that scientific research does not end at the conclusion of an experiment and researchers continue to look for new applications and questions raised by their results." I just don't know what to pose or suggest because I feel I have such a basic knowledge of capacitors and inductors, so I don't know what to ask that's more specific rather than vague or overly general. Please help me find specific ways/questions to think about what to do with this kind of data and experiment.

Answer 1

After understanding the basics of RL circuit and RC circuit , we need to find applications of Capacitors and inductors.

For example charging and discharging property of capacitor is utilized for energy storage and timer application.

we get AC voltage (110V /230 V ) in home and office. Apart from filament/incandescent lamps, all other devices need DC voltage (6V/12V ) . Hence a transformer is used to step down the voltage, diodes are used to make the current uni-direction and a capacitor is used to smooth out varying voltage to constant voltage.   In this way we get constant voltage needed for operation of devices. Simplified circuit of rectifying AC to DC voltage is shown below with voltage waveform

As we see from above figure charging and dischatging ability of capacitor is utilized in AC-to-DC voltage conversion.

Another important application of capacitor is its usage in timer circuits where varying voltage with desired frequency is generated. A simple oscillator circuit that produces voltage pulses required for timer application is given below

As shown in figure, a neon lamp caonnected across the capacitor is triggered when the voltage across capacitor reaches the neon lamp operating voltage and capacitor is getting discharged fast. While discharging , when voltage falls below the cut-off voltage of neon bulb , capacitor is getting disconnected from neon lamp, charging starts again and the cycle continues . Hence we get saw-tooth voltage variation of time period T that depends on the value of resistance and capacitance. By varying the resistance and capacitance values we get desired period of varying voltage .

inductors are used in tuning circuits which are used to select the desired frequency. In a tuned circuit, we have capacitor connected along with the inductor, either in parallel or series. The frequency of the tuning circuit at which the capacitive reactance is equal to the inductive reactance (XC = XL) is called ‘Resonant Frequency’.

The series resonance circuits are used in many electronic circuits like television , radio tuning circuits and filters to vary the frequency and selecting the various frequency channels.

Inductors are used in metal-object detectors which work on the principle of inductance. We know that inductance is the phenomenon in which , the magnetic field produced in the coil , will oppose the flow of current in it. So thus the inductance will restrict the current flow and reduces the circuit performance.

In the Metal-object detector sensor, a fluctuating magnetic field is generated by oscillator around the winding of coil, which is located in the sensing face of the device. When an object moves near to metal-object, eddy currents starts building up in the metal object which will reduce the inductive sensor’s magnetic field. Strength of the oscillator is monitored by the detection circuit and an output is triggered from the output circuitry , when the oscillations are below the sufficient level.