What is the Potential Above a Charged Cylindrical Shell?

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on calculating the electric potential above a charged cylindrical shell with a radius of 6.90 cm and a linear charge density of 8.40 µC/m. The user initially attempted to derive the potential using Gaussian surfaces and integration but encountered errors in their method. After clarification and adjustments to the limits of integration, the correct approach involved using the distance to the surface of the cylinder and integrating from 0 to d, resulting in a successful calculation of the potential.

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  • Knowledge of linear charge density concepts
  • Basic principles of electric potential and its calculation
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Students in physics, particularly those studying electromagnetism, as well as educators and anyone involved in solving electrostatic problems related to charged cylindrical shells.

Melawrghk
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Homework Statement


A very long insulating cylindrical shell of radius 6.90 cm carries charge of linear density 8.40 microC/m spread uniformly over its outer surface. Find the potential of a point located 4.4cm above the surface of the shell

Homework Equations


The Attempt at a Solution



I used Gaussian surface to find the electric field created by the shell outside (Q = linear charge density):
QL/\epsilon_{0} = E*2*pi*d*L,
where L is length, d is distance to point from the axis of the cylinder.
The Ls cancel out, rearranging, I got:
E=\frac{Q}{2pi*d*\epsilon_{0}}

I then integrated that to get the potential:
V=\frac{Q}{2pi*\epsilon_{0}} \int {(1/d)dd}
The integral's upper limit is d-r, and lower limit is r.
I got the equation below as a result:
V=\frac{Q}{2pi*d*\epsilon_{0}} ln(\frac{d-r}{r})

Substituting in the numbers I got V=-6.8*10^4, but that's wrong. Is it my method? Should I slice the cylinder into rings and do V from each one, then integrate the whole thing?

Thanks in advance
 
Last edited:
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Melawrghk said:
I then integrated that to get the potential:
V=\frac{Q}{2pi*d*\epsilon_{0}} \int {(1/d)dd}
What's that extra 1/d doing out front of the integral?:wink:

The integral's upper limit is d-r, and lower limit is r.

Why is that?
 
gabbagabbahey said:
What's that extra 1/d doing out front of the integral?:wink:
Why is that?

First one: typo, sorry :)

Second one: now that I think about, I'm not sure. I was thinking of using distance from the cylinder's axis and then r would be the smallest so that you're still on the outside (well, surface) and d-r would be anything beyond that. Should those limits be d and 0 instead?..

EDIT: I got it! Instead of using d as distance to center of the cylinder, I used d as distance to surface and for gaussian surface I had:
E=Q/(epsilon*2*pi*(d+r))
And integrated taht with upper limit being 'd' and lower being 0. And it worked! :D Thanks so much.
 
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