Overview
Let’s take a break from all of the “book learning” and explore the world around you. For these assignments, your writing will be focused on Everyday Physics which will help you connect your Readings to things that have happened in the world around you. Your posts should be interesting and well written.
In this module, you will look for an article or news story/video that relates to one or more of the following topics:
Electric potential
Capacitance/capacitors
Energy storage via capacitors
Reply to the comments your classmates:
first post:
Static Wicks on Aircraft
I was very fascinated by the discussion in the book on static wicks on airplanes and helicopters. With airplanes being a primary mode of transport within the world today, and with so many lives on board each aircraft, it is very important to have good and reliable safety measures in place for these aircraft. One area of safety that passengers may overlook are the static wicks on aircraft. You may have seen them on the trailing edge of the wing of an aircraft and not known what they are for, but they are actually a safety feature so that planes do not build up a dangerous level of static charge.
While flying, it may be easy to think that the plane is not really colliding with anything, but the plane has to deal with the constant bombardment of air and water particles as it flies. Especially when flying through clouds, planes collect a large amount of static charge as the particles hit the wing and fuselage. This collision of particles causes a large electric potential to build up within the aircraft. Static wicks are designed to allow for the electric potential to slowly bled off as the air reconverges behind the wings, to discharge this potential in a safe manner. According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, without static wicks, the static charge built up on an aircraft could even interfere with navigation and communications instruments. By slowly bleeding off the charge on the plane with static wicks, the electric potential does not build to such a level that a rapid discharge, or explosion, could occur.
Second one:
What are capacitors used for?
10 Applications of Capacitors | Uses (dipslab.com)
In this post I will be talking about capacitors and their many uses. Capacitors are similar to batteries in that they store charge, but batteries do this through a chemical reaction that can be "recharged" or reversed by feeding electricity back into the battery. Because of this chemical reaction, the electricity is released linearly. Capacitors on the other hand, store energy in electric fields between plates of conductive material and release their charge in a non-constant but predictable pattern. They also release energy much more quickly than a battery would. The way that a capacitor stores charge can be seen in figure 25.2.2 where the electric field can be seen between the two plates.
Capacitors are a common component in almost all circuits because of their ability to store energy, change current from DC to AC, and many more. The only thing that they can fundamentally do is store energy and release it, but this can be used in many instances. One for example is that they are used in many computers as a way to power the system in case of a sudden loss in power. Another thing, as mentioned earlier, is that they can be used to change the type of current. The way they do this is by being charged with the direct current and releasing the charge in intervals to create an alternating current. Capacitors can also be used as timers in circuits because of how they release their charge, and to reduce the amount of electrical noise picked up within a circuit.