Lesson 02: Faraday's Law, Lenz's Law

Circuit Simulations

Try out this simulator to get a feel for how inductors and capacitors behave in an AC circuit.

RL Circuit

1. When is the current through an inductor maximum? When is it zero?
2. Why does opening both switches immediately set the current and voltage across the inductor to zero?
3. What combination of settings results in the largest time constant?
4. The voltage across the resistor is not plotted here. Can you figure out what a plot of it would look like?
5. Which parameters affect the speed with which the capacitor charges/discharges?
6. Which parameters affect the maximum charge held by the capacitor?
7. Which parameters affect the maximum current provided by the discharging capacitor?

There are more good simulators here.