5 - Inductance & Capacitance Measurement For DC (Aina P. Marandang)

Inductance &
Capacitance
Measurement for DC
PRESENTED BY : AINA P. MARANDANG
Inductance Measurement for DC
An Inductor is a passive device that stores energy in its
Magnetic Field and returns energy to the circuit whenever
required. An Inductor is formed by a cylindrical Core with
many Turns of conducting wire. Figure 1 and Figure 2 are the
basic structure and the schematic symbol of the Inductor.
Figure 1: Basic Structure of the

Figure 2: Schematic symbol of the Inductor

When an Inductor is connected to a circuit with Direct
Current (DC) source, two processes, which are called
"storing" and "decaying" energy, will happen in specific
conditions.
The Inductor is connected to the DC Power Supply,
Figure 3. The sudden increase of current in the Inductor
produces an Self Induced Electromotive Force, vemf,
opposing the Current change, Figure 1.
This appears as a Voltage
across the Inductor, vL = -
vemf. This - vemf will slow
down the Current change, and
in turn, the slow down of the
Current change, will make vL
become smaller. When the
Current becomes stable, the
Inductor creates no more Figure 3: Inductor is Storing Energy
opposition and vL becomes
zero, the Storage Phase is
An Inductor is equivalent to a Short Circuit to Direct
Current, because once the Storage Phase has finished, the
Current, iL, that flows through it is stable, iL = V / R, no Self
Induced e.m.f. is produced and vL is zero. The Inductor acts
like an ordinary connecting wire, its Resistance is zero. The
Current iL through an Inductor cannot change abruptly.
When the Inductor is disconnected from the Power Supply,
Figure 4, vL reverses polarity and drops instantaneously from
zero to a negative value, but iL maintains the same direction
and magnitude. The energy stored in the Inductor decays
through the Resistor RD. vL rises gradually to zero and iL
In Figures 3 and 4, the Resistance
of RS and RD affects the storing
rate and the decaying rate of the
Inductor respectively.

The quotient of Inductance L and
Resistance R is called the Time
Constant τ, which characterizes
the rate of energy storage and
Figure 4: Inductor is Decaying
energy decay in the Inductor,
Energy
Figure 5.
Figure 5: The Voltage VL and Current iL during the Storage
Phase and Discharge (Decay) Phase
The larger the Resistance, the smaller the Time Constant,
the faster the Inductor stores the energy and decays the
energy, and vice versa.

Inductors are found in many electronic circuits. For
example, two Inductors can form a Transformer that is
used to convert between high and low Voltages, and vice
versa.
Capacitance Measurement for DC

The fundamental equation for a capacitor is Q = CV,
where Q is charge in Coulombs, C is capacitance in Farads,
and V is voltage in Volts. Voltage is relatively easy to
measure. Charge is not so easy to measure directly, it is
more common to measure current I = dQ/dt. But
capacitors do not pass DC current, so a time-dependent
current measurement is necessary.
Ohm’s Law is V = IR , where V and I are voltage and
current, and R is resistance in Ohms. This serves largely
as a definition of resistance R , but it is fairly
straightforward to fabricate components (resistors) that
obey Ohm’s Law to great accuracy with good stability.
Since DC voltage and current are readily measurable,
resistance is also readily measurable.
If a capacitor charged to voltage V 0 is discharged
through a resistor R , the capacitor voltage V follows
V (t) = V 0 exp(− t/τ) where τ = RC is known as the
time-constant. If the voltage is measured as a
function of time, the time-constant τ can be
determined. If the resistance R is known, then the
capacitance is C = τ/R . So measuring capacitance
can be reduced to measuring the time-constant with a
Measuring the time-constant requires both charging
the capacitor, and discharging it, while observing the
voltage. You have already seen one approach to that
problem in the LC circuit lab: use a square-wave
function generator and an oscilloscope. For an RC
circuit, the basic scheme is shown below.
If the square wave is between 0 Volts and V0, the capacitor
charges to V0 on the positive part of the square wave, then
discharges (back into the function generator) on the zero Volt
part of the square wave. If there is a resistor between the
function generator and the capacitor, the discharge will not
be instantaneous. If the period of the square wave is much
larger than the time constant, the voltage will obey V (t) = V 0
exp(− t/τ), where t = 0 refers to the falling edge of the

square wave. The charging waveform in the same case will
Capacitance standards
NPL is able to measure a wide range of capacitance
standards of around 80 different types of capacitors, from
more than 20 leading manufacturers, over the range 0.001
pF to 10 mF.

Capacitance standards are measured using a range of
coaxial AC bridges over a frequency range 20 Hz - 1MHz
depending on the type.

NPL has developed highly stable four terminal-pair
capacitance standards of compact design of selected
values between values between 50 pF and 1 μF
available. Their stability derives from using a ceramic
dielectric and by keeping the standards at constant
temperature using a two-stage oven.
THANK
YOU !

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Inductance &

Figure 1: Basic Structure of the

exp(− t/τ), where t = 0 refers to the falling edge of the

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