Basic Capacitors: What Happens When a Thick Slab is Inserted?

[michael650]

The question I had was more qualitative than quantitative, but I always preferred to understand concepts in both ways clearly. Can someone explain what happens to the capacitance of parallel-plate capacitor when a thick slab of metal is inserted between the plates, parallel to them but not in contact with them? I'm having trouble going through the algebra of it all.

~~Thanks!

 

[tiny-tim]

hi michael650!

Can someone explain what happens to the capacitance of parallel-plate capacitor when a thick slab of metal is inserted between the plates, parallel to them but not in contact with them?

the https://www.physicsforums.com/library.php?do=view_item&itemid=6"

the electric field E is zero inside the metal (because it's a conductor, and the charges rearrange themselves to cancel out any external field), and D/ε₀ in the two gaps …

so the capacitance is … ? ​

(of course, you could just say that it's now two capacitors in series, with the same charge )

 

[cragar]

on the metal slab free charge would come to the surface to make the E field inside the slab 0 since it is a conductor . Tiny tim submitted his when i was typing this .