Circuit Analysis – How Does a Capacitor Work Under AC?

capacitorcircuit analysis

I am confused about one of the core fundamentals of electrical components. How does a capacitor work under AC conditions? I know that a capacitor has two states (transient and steady.) This happens for DC circuits as well.

Let us assume that we have built an AC RC circuit with a sinusoidal source. Initially the capacitor will be in its transient state as it was completely chargeless beforehand. We already know that a capacitor tries to hinder the change in its potential difference so when a source tries to induce charge, it obstructs and gets charged gradually and hence potential difference across it changes slowly depending on its capacitance. At the initial stage the capacitor shows some weird behavior but eventually it gets stable which we call the steady state of the capacitor. During steady state, the capacitor has its potential difference changed sinusoidally. If the capacitor intends to obstruct the change in its potential difference then why is it able to change that so easily in steady state? It is understandable for lower frequency, but at higher frequency shouldn't it pose some problems as it has to change its potential difference almost abruptly?

Again if it can change so smoothly along a sinusoid then why is there a transient state to even start with? I mean in steady state there is also some point when \$V_C = 0\$ but still it is able to change its voltage so smoothly but at the initial stage it acts weirdly.
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Best Answer

The transient state is there because the voltage source was started at phase zero. That's not where it would be in the steady state when the capacitor's instantaneous voltage was zero.

Look at the phase shift between the voltage source and the capacitor voltage in the steady state.

Since this is an RC circuit, the voltage source and capacitor voltage are two separate waveforms. It helps to plot them both at the same graph - you'll see how the phase shift stabilizes in the steady state.

Then all you have to do to avoid the startup transient is to start the voltage source at the correct phase - same it would have in the steady state instantaneously at the times when the capacitor voltage is zero.

When plotting, fit fewer cycles on the graph, so it's easier to see the relative phase of the two waveforms.

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