What is the motion of charges when ac is flowing through a conductor?

Answer 1

Remember, electrons can move very fast indeed, even up to the speed of light which is 300,000,000 (300 million) meters in a second. So, in a wire that is conducting AC (alternating current) the electrons move in just the same way as they do for DC (direct current) except they go back and forth at the frequency of the alternating current.

If it is the normal power main's frequency that will be either 50 cycles per second (as in Europe and elsewhere) or 60 cycles per second (as in USA, Canada, etc.). If the alternating current is sound waves going to loudspeakers or headphones the frequency could be as low as 10 cyles per second or higher than 20,000 cycles per second - or even lower or higher than those frequencies but you may not be able to hear them!

Answer 2

In DC, one atom's orbitals are emptied by electrons moving on, and those from the next atom move in. The whole process is started from a point where there is a shortage of electrons (the negative electrode). In AC, the same effect occurs in quickly changing direction, except that the electrons are forced to move by an alternating magnetic field.

AnswerOnly the outer, 'valence', shell of a conductor's atom contributes free electrons to act as charge carriers. These free-electrons move in a rapid, haphazard, fashion. When under the influence of an electric field, however, their random movement is biased in the opposite direction to that of the field -i.e. from negative to positive. This means that a current 'flows' very slowly, in the order of millimetres per hour! This applies whether the electric (not magnetic) field is due to a d.c. or an a.c. source.

Further to the original answer, a negative electrode has an excess, not a 'shortage', of electrons.

Answer 3

in ac circuits the electron move forward in +ve half cycle and the move in opposite direction in -ve half cycle.thus electrons vibrates along the conductor and if a bulb is connected to the circuit.is glows.

Answer 4

It changes polarity, i.e. instead of going one way around a circuit it goes in both directions but gradually like a curve. It outputs a two way curve as you have probably seen in diagrams. Resistors and diodes and other components/conductors can be used to slow or stop the flow in either/both directions.

Answer 5

When AC flows through a conductor, charges continuously alternate their direction of movement back and forth along the conductor. This causes them to oscillate in a periodic manner. The direction of current flow changes with the alternation of the AC signal, resulting in the back and forth motion of charges.

Answer 6

* it flows sinusoidly in the wire .In fixed dirn ,it changes as function of time.

Answer 7

The charges move back and forth all the time.