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 Inductor

 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 opposition and vL becomes
zero, the Storage Phase is over. Figure 3: Inductor is Storing Energy
 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 drops gradually to zero.
 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 energy decay in the
Figure 4: Inductor is Decaying Energy
Inductor, 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 known resistance.
 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 be V (t) = V 0 [1 – exp(− t/τ)]
where t = 0 refers to the rising edge of the square wave.
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.