Figure 8.3.1 8.3. 1: (a) Three capacitors are connected in series. The magnitude of the charge on each plate is Q. (b) The network of capacitors in (a) is equivalent to one capacitor that has a smaller capacitance than any of the individual capacitances in (a), and the charge on its plates is Q.
When capacitors are connected in series, the total capacitance is less than any one of the series capacitors’ individual capacitances. If two or more capacitors are connected in series, the overall effect is that of a single (equivalent) capacitor having the sum total of the plate spacings of the individual capacitors.
There are two common types of connections called, series and parallel. Here we will see the series combination of capacitors. When the capacitors are connected in the form of series combination, then the capacitance in total will be less than the individual capacitances of the series capacitors.
Figure 1. (a) Capacitors connected in series. The magnitude of the charge on each plate is Q. (b) An equivalent capacitor has a larger plate separation d. Series connections produce a total capacitance that is less than that of any of the individual capacitors.
The series combination of two or three capacitors resembles a single capacitor with a smaller capacitance. Generally, any number of capacitors connected in series is equivalent to one capacitor whose capacitance (called the equivalent capacitance) is smaller than the smallest of the capacitances in the series combination.
Then to summarise, the total or equivalent capacitance, CT of a circuit containing Capacitors in Series is the reciprocal of the sum of the reciprocals of all of the individual capacitance’s added together.
When capacitors are connected in series, the total capacitance is less than any one of the series capacitors'' individual capacitances. If two or more capacitors are connected in series, the overall effect is that of a single (equivalent) capacitor …