Charge and Discharge of Capasitors: Revisiting the Analogy with Water in Connected Containers A W Hasanah1*, A S Sunarya2, and S Viridi3
1Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Electric Power and Renewable Energy, Institut Teknologi PLN, Jakarta 11750, Indonesia
2Department of Manufacturing Automation Engineering and Mechatronics, Politeknik Manufaktur Bandung, Bandung 40135, Indonesia
3Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
Abstract
Abstract
Analogy can be considered as an approach in teaching an abstract concept, where in electricity related to capacitor, water and containers are sometimes used. In this work we try to summarize available reports related to this. Usually, the water flow (WF) represents electric current, water height (WH) is an analogy to electric potential difference, container floor area (FA) can be viewed as capacitance, hose (HS) is as connecting wire, and water reservoir with large floor area (WR) behaves as a battery. The voltage saturation while charging the capacitor and voltage decaying while discharging capacitor can be obtained with the use of WH, FA, HS, and WR elements. Even it is not so ideal, but the observation tends to show qualitatively similar curves. We also present comparation table between electric circuit and water circuit. Unfortunately not every aspect in electric side has the counter part in the water side.
Keywords: capacitor, analogy, teaching method, water and container.
