On 8/21/13 2:34 PM, Electronic Battle wrote:
Hello all many years ago someone provided a very useful reference which was a document (either a paper or an excerpt from a book). I look to Antonio De Queiroz or Bert Hickman for starters but it may have been one of many similar experts. If I remember correctly, it explained that for a given breakdown voltage, the dimensions required of a toroid to hold off that voltage meant it presented a smaller capacitive load than a sphere of equivalent hold-off (breakdown) voltage. I can't find the reference and I have failed to locate it in the archives, can anyone point me in the right direction please?
It might be a simple argument on surface area and radius of curvature. The breakdown voltage is related to radius of curvature, and a toroid of diameter X has smaller radius of curvature than a sphere of diameter X.
The sphere also has more surface area than the toroid, so for a given diameter, it will have more capacitance.
A sphere it can hold more charge before it breaks down (e.g. the limit is when the field at the surface exceeds the breakdown field for air).
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