Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, Sixth Edition, 6th Edition

14

CHAPTER

Capacitive Reactance

CAPACITIVE REACTANCE ACTS AS THE NATURAL COUNTERPART OF INDUCTIVE REACTANCE. WE CAN represent it graphically as a ray that goes in a negative direction. When we join the capacitive-reactance and inductive-reactance rays at their end points (both of which correspond to a reactance of zero), we get a complete number line, as shown in Fig. 14-1. This line depicts all possible values of reactance because any nonzero reactance must be either inductive or capacitive.

14-1   We can represent inductive and capacitive reactance values as points along a number line.

Capacitors and Direct Current

Imagine two huge, flat metal ...