On 4/9/11 11:29 AM, jhowson4@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Sure it seems logical.. If you had two identical spheres separated by a large distance, the charge that could be held at a given voltage would, in fact, be twice that of a single sphere.Well Steve, experimental evidence and experience always supersedes theory. Being an individual who wants to go into the field of high voltage research upon graduation, I am going to have to play with that software you have. =) So I guess the real question is, where is the charge going? Since it does not seem logical that a 50% decrease in surface area would yield only a 10% -15% decrease in capacitance. So something else must be going on here.
But, when the spheres are close to each other, the charge is not evenly distributed on the spheres. There's less on the side of the sphere facing the other one.
One can do a simple experiment or calculation with two flat plates at various distances, or two parallel wires.
I suppose that the most logical explanation would be that charge is actually being stored on the interior of the structure for these open geometry designs. Maybe due to the incompleteness of the conductor Faraday's law does not apply with the same rigor as it would in a solid sphere model.
It depends on what you consider as the contours of integration, but basically, you're right.. there's a) charge on the inside and b) less charge on the surfaces facing another surface.
Analytical closed form solutions don't exist for most electrodes (heck, even something as simple as the charge or E field between two spheres can't be solved as a finite closed form.. only an infinite series)
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