Introduction to Marine Engineering

A capacitor is an electrical component that stores and releases electrical energy in an electric field. It consists of two conductive plates separated by an insulating material called a dielectric. When a voltage is applied across the plates, electric charges accumulate on the plates, creating an electric field between them.

When a capacitor is charged in this way, energy is stored in the electric field. Capacitors can be discharged to quickly provide short bursts of power. They are often used for energy storage, filtering, and smoothing voltage fluctuations.

Ceramic capacitors are widely used due to their small size, low cost, and versatility. They are suitable for general applications like decoupling, filtering, and timing.

Electrolytic capacitors are used in high capacitance and energy storage applications, such as power supply filtering and voltage regulation.

Variable capacitors, also called trimmer capacitors or tuning capacitors, they allow manual adjustment of capacitance values, vital in tuning circuits and calibration