Thread: 12 volt Battery
View Single Post
Old 11-12-2013, 12:49 AM   #20 (permalink)
serialk11r
Master EcoModder
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1,756

spyder2 - '00 Toyota MR2 Spyder
Thanks: 104
Thanked 407 Times in 312 Posts
The "voltage" you are concerned with is the dielectric breakdown voltage. If you put capacitors in series, the voltage drop is split between the capacitors. So if you put identical capacitors in series, the new peak allowable voltage is the number of capacitors times the breakdown voltage of a single capacitor.

The capacitance is the harmonic mean of them, which in the case of identical capacitors is just 1/(number of capacitors).

It's analogous to resistors in parallel, except instead of adding current you add voltage, and instead of taking the harmonic mean of resistances you take the harmonic mean of capacitances
  Reply With Quote