Graphing the energy in an capacitor, coil and resistor

Click For Summary

Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around graphing the energy in separate electrical components: a resistor, a capacitor, and an inductor. Participants explore how to calculate and represent the energy stored or dissipated by each component over time, focusing on the mathematical relationships and integration required for these calculations.

Discussion Character

  • Technical explanation
  • Mathematical reasoning
  • Exploratory

Main Points Raised

  • One participant seeks guidance on how to represent energy as a function of time for a resistor, capacitor, and inductor, noting that these components are not part of an RLC circuit.
  • Another participant clarifies that capacitors store energy in an electric field, inductors in a magnetic field, and resistors do not store energy but dissipate it as heat.
  • There is a suggestion to calculate the power for each component and then integrate to find energy over time.
  • A participant provides a formula for the power dissipated by a resistor, suggesting integration to find energy.
  • Another participant shares the formula for energy stored in a capacitor and inductor, emphasizing the need to integrate current to find charge for the capacitor.
  • One participant presents their calculations for the resistor's power and energy but questions how to graph the resulting function.
  • Concerns are raised about the correctness of the current calculations for the resistor, with a participant suggesting a review of the phase angle and integration process.
  • A participant corrects their earlier statement about the phase of the current and discusses the calculation of active power using an integral formula, while seeking clarification on calculating reactive power for the inductor and capacitor.
  • Another participant explains how to derive power for the inductor and capacitor using their respective terminal relations and emphasizes the importance of integrating power to find energy.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the correctness of current calculations and integration methods, indicating that the discussion remains unresolved with multiple competing approaches and interpretations presented.

Contextual Notes

Participants highlight potential issues with integration techniques, phase angles, and the definitions of power and energy in the context of different components. There are also mentions of the need for careful handling of constants during integration.

Who May Find This Useful

Readers interested in electrical engineering, circuit analysis, or those seeking to understand energy calculations in resistive and reactive components may find this discussion beneficial.

Maskorx
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
Thread moved from the technical forums, so no HH Template is shown.
I need to graph the current energy on a resistor, capacitor and inductor they are all separate it is not a RLC circuit.

This is what I know
  • u(t) = sqrt(2)*220*sin(314*t+π/3)
  • R = 10 Ω
  • L = 3 mH
  • C= 3 mF
I have already calculated the current for each component, now I need to calculate the energy on each component and then draw its graph.

The currents are
  • Ic(t) = 293.52*sin(314*t+2π/3) current through the capacitor
  • Il(t) = 330.29*sin(314*t-π/3) current through the in inductor
  • Ir(t) = 31.11*sin(314*t+π/6) current through the resistor
I want to know how can I represent the energy as a function of time for each of these components induvidual so that I can graph them then and get an diagram?
And how to calculate the total energy on each component?

I repeat this is not an RLC circuit, each of these components is induvidualy connected for itself.

If anybody can help me out I will be grateful really, srry for my bad english.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The graph is easy - plot E vs t.
To calculate the energy on a component, you have to answer: what does "energy on a component" mean?

A capacitor stores energy in it's electric field, and inductor stores it in the magnetic field ... resistors do not store energy, but do dissipate it.
The amount and rate of energy stored or dissipated changes from instant to instant.
Note: The rate that energy changes is called power.
 
I think the best way to approach this would be to find the power dissipated/stored by the devices and then integrate the power to find the energy vs. time.

Do you know how to calculate the power dissipated or stored?
 
hint: the power dissipated by a resistor is (i^2)*R. You can plug in your current for the resistor and then integrate with respect to time from t=0 to t to find power vs. time.
 
The energy stored on a capacitor is 0.5*(Q^2)/C. You can integrate your current to find Q and then plug this into the equation for energy stored by the capacitor.

The energy stored by an inductor is 0.5*L*(i^2). For this one simply plug in your current.
 
I did the calculations for the resistor and I got this p(t)=4839.58-4839.58cos(628t+π/3) W

Now I got the energy (power) dissipated from the resistor by intergrading p(t) and I got this at the end W = 483.958 - 4839.58*(1/628)*sin(628t+π/3)

When I put in the interval from the integral from t=0 to t I get that the total energy is 477.3 J

And how do I now make a graph do I just plug in time values in the period in this function W = 483.958 - 4839.58*(1/628)*sin(628t+π/3) ?
 
The current Ir(t) - and probably others, is not correct.
Ir(t)=u(t)/R = [sqrt(2)*220*sin(314*t+π/3)]/10 = ...
you got: 31.11*sin(314*t+π/6) ... how does dividing by 10 change the phase angle?
(Tweek: do not round off irrationals until the final calculation ##22\sqrt{2}\approx 31.11##)

Your integration is not right. You started out with
p(t)=4839.58-4839.58cos(628t+π/3) W

Which is an equation of form:
##p(t)=A-A\cos (\omega t + \delta)## ... and you want to use the fact that ##p(t)=\frac{d}{dt}E(t)##

For some reason you got: W = 483.958 - 4839.58*(1/628)*sin(628t+π/3)
... first, you used "W" already in the power equation: do not use the same letter for two different things.
This equation is ##\cdots = (A/10) - (A/\omega)\sin(\omega t + \delta)##
The integral of cosine is sine, well done, but what usually happens when you integrate a constant?
What you did there was ##\int A\; dt = A/10##.

This was an indefinite integral.
The indefinite integral should have an arbitrary constant ... so what happened to the "+C"?

You probably didn't think you needed it because you were doing the indefnite integral on the way to doing a definite integral ... what you said, basically, was that the energy dissipated at time t is given by
##E(t) = \int_0^t p(t')\;dt'##Lets look at this strategy in a context you are probably more familiar with.
Imagine you are given the acceleration function for a vehicle and you are asked to find the velocity-time graph for this vehicle.
How would you go about it ... well, here is what you did:

You said ##v(t)=\int_0^t a(t')\; dt'## ...
so if the acceleration was a constant, then ##v(t) = at## which seems OK until you realize that the correct suvat equation is ##v(t)=u+at## ... so what went wrong?

Once you have v(t) ... you need to graph it.
Usually you only need to sketch the graph - this is where you find out the turning points and roots etc to guide the sketch.
You could plug in a lot of values for t and get lots of v out and plot the points and hope you have enough to join up to make a reasonable graph ... but it is better to use your understanding of functions to draw a sketch. Like if you wanted to draw a parabola, you'd find the turning point and the roots and just sketch a reasonably parabola-shaped curve through those. In fact you will have the sum of a sine with a line ... so figure out what that looks like. It may help to put dotted lines into show the voltage vs time function on the same axes.
 
Last edited:
To correct myself the phase on ir is π/3 i typed it wrong in my first post as I see now.
I solved the problem but my profesor told me to calculate the active power thorugh this formula P=1/T ∫p(t) dt, I was calculating it through P=U*I*cos φ, this is not a problem for me now to calculate the active power through the integral formula for the resistor, but how do I calculate reactive power on the coil and the capacitor without using this formula Q=U*I*sin φ?
 
You know that power = voltage*current, which applies to all devices. You also presumably know the terminal relations for your devices (i.e. V = -Ldi/dt for an inductor and i = Cdv/dt or v = (1/C)*integral(i*dt) for a capacitor).

So, first differentiate your current for the inductor and multiply by -L. Then multiply that result by the current through the inductor and that is your P(t). Then integrate P(t)dt from 0 to t to find energy as a function of time for the inductor.

Next, apply a similar procedure for the capacitor but instead of differentiating the current you are integrating it. Then multiply by 1/C (note there is no negative sign for a capacitor). Then multiply that result by your current through the capacitor to find power. Integrate that to find energy.

If you can do those two things applying i^2R for the resistor will be easy.

There are only two things you need to know here I think. The terminal relations for your devices and P = V*I. You also need to know that energy is power integrated over time.

Try to break the problem up into pieces.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 9 ·
Replies
9
Views
2K
Replies
5
Views
3K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
3K
Replies
4
Views
3K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
4K
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
5K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
  • · Replies 5 ·
Replies
5
Views
2K
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K