Why does a tesla coil make sound

In this field, non-square wavefroms, such as raised cosine, are quite common, due to sidebands created by squares. The interrupter is not an amplifier. Show 4 more comments. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password.

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Primarily, we are aware that the electronic oscillator is a device that produces electrical signals of either a sine wave or a square wave. This electronic oscillator produces signals in the radio frequency range of 20 kHz to GHz, known as a radio frequency oscillator. This coil has the ability to produce output voltages up to several million volts based upon the size of the coil. The Tesla coil works on a principle to achieve a condition called resonance.

Here, the primary coil emits huge amounts of current into the secondary coil to drive the secondary circuit with maximum energy. The fine-tuned circuit helps to shoot the current from primary to secondary circuit at a tuned resonant frequency. This coil has two main parts — a primary coil and a secondary coil, with each coil having its own capacitor. A spark gap connects the coils and capacitors. The functionality of the spark gap is to generate the spark to excite the system.

This coil uses a specialized transformer called a resonant transformer, a radio-frequency transformer, or an oscillation transformer. The primary coil is connected to the power source and the secondary coil of a transformer is coupled loosely to ensure that it resonates. The capacitor connected in parallel with the transformer circuit acts as a tuning circuit or an LC circuit to generate signals at a specific frequency.

The primary of the transformer, otherwise referred to as a resonant transformer steps up to generate very high levels of voltage ranging between 2kv to 30 kV, which in turn charges the capacitor. The core concentrates the field, ensuring that most of it passes through the secondary.

As the magnetic field oscillates, it induces an oscillating current in the secondary coil. The voltage across each turn of wire is the same, so the total voltage across the coils is proportional to the number of turns:.

Because energy is conserved, the current on the side of the transformer with the higher voltage is smaller by the same proportion. The Tesla coil is a very souped-up transformer. The primary winding has six turns and the secondary has about turns. But not quite a quarter million. Additionally, because the Tesla coil is air-cored and the coils are positioned relatively far apart, only a small fraction of the magnetic field produced by the primary is actually interlinked with the secondary. A resonant circuit is like a tuning fork: it has a very strong amplitude response at one particular frequency, called the resonant or natural frequency.

In the case of the tuning fork, the tines vibrate strongly when excited at a frequency determined by its dimensions and the material properties. A resonant circuit achieves the highest voltages when driven at its natural frequency, which is determined by the value of its components.

Resonant circuits use capacitors and inductors, and therefore are also known as LC circuits. Capacitors store energy in the form of an electric field between two plates separated by an insulator, known as a dielectric. The size of the capacitor is dependent upon the size of the plates, the distance between them, and the properties of the dielectric. Interestingly, the topload on the Tesla coil acts like a one-plate capacitor, with the ground plane surrounding the coil acting as the opposing plate.

The capacitance of the topload is determined by its dimensions and its proximity to other objects. Inductors store energy in the form of a magnetic field around a wire, or in the middle of a loop of wire. An LC circuit can have an inductor and capacitor in series or parallel. Here, we are using series LC circuits like this:.

The capacitor wants to discharge, so charge flows around the circuit, through the inductor, to the other plate. In the process, a magnetic field builds up inside the inductor. When the charge on each plate of the capacitor is zero, current stops flowing. But at this point, the inductor has energy stored up in a magnetic field - which tends to oppose change.

The magnetic field collapses, inducing a continuing current in the same direction, thereby recharging the capacitor and restarting the cycle in the opposite direction. The resonant frequency of an LC circuit, or the frequency at which the energy cycles between the capacitor and inductor as described above, is:.

Driving the circuit at its resonant frequency adds energy during each cycle. By providing a succession of well-timed pushes, we can build up to extremely high voltages! In the Tesla coil, a spark breaks out and discharges the circuit once the voltage is high enough.

In the following diagram, L pri and L sec are the primary and secondary inductors, respectively. They are weakly coupled, linking around one-tenth of their magnetic fields. There are several reasons why Tesla coils do not employ a magnetic core.

First of all, the voltages in the Tesla coil are so high that the core would quickly saturate, meaning it would no longer be magnetizable past a certain point.

Also, most materials pose a resistance and heat up in a magnetic field that switches rapidly, as is the case in the coil. The high voltage the coil produces also has the potential to arc to the core. How do we go about exciting the primary? We use a DC voltage source, and apply the voltage in alternating directions across the primary. The switches that we use to apply a DC voltage in alternating directions across the primary are IGBTs, short for insulated gate bipolar transistors.

An IGBT is a transistor capable of controlling very high voltages and currents.