Capacitor Engineering Bulletin: Polarization and Leakage Current Characterizations of High Voltage, Film Capacitors

It is an unfortunate fact that "real" capacitors differ from ideal capacitors in many respects. Real capacitors include parasitic inductance and resistance, and vary in capacitance with temperature, frequency and voltage. This is especially true in high energy density capacitors, where dielectric materials and current conductors are highly stressed.

The behavior of real capacitors deviates farthest from the ideal capacitor model during low-frequency transients such as during DC charging. This can impact the selection or design of compact charging power supplies, time delays between the connection of charging circuits and discharge of the capacitor or bank, or system performance.

General Atomics Energy Products (GAEP) manufactures capacitors, charging power supplies and a variety of pulse power systems which utilize capacitors as energy storage, pulse discharge devices. Due to this experience, GAEP has a unique understanding of the physical behavior of capacitors and the problems associated with capacitor applications