What is Electrostatic Force and its Types?

Electrostatics Definition:

Several factors are relevant to science. The electromagnetic force, gravity force, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force are the four fundamental forces that physicist's study. The electromagnetic force and electrostatic force work together. The investigation of electromagnetic events that take place when a static equilibrium is reached, or if there aren’t any moving charges.

As a result of the enormous strength of the electric force, charges attain their equilibrium locations quickly. It is feasible to determine the distributions of the electrical field or the electric potential from a known arrangement of charges, conductors, and insulators using electrostatics’ mathematical techniques.

On the other hand, it is feasible to compute the electric fields in areas between conductors and to ascertain the charge distribution over the outside of the conductors when given a collection of conductors with given potentials.

A collection of charges in rest may be thought of as having electric energy from the perspective of the effort necessary to build the charges, or the energy can also be thought of as being in the magnetic field created by the combination of charges.

The energy needed for charging such a device is kept in a capacitor as electrostatic energy for the magnetic field, which is the last form of energy storage.

How the Electrostatic Force Works

While opposite charges attract one another, similar charges repel one another. For instance, two positively charged protons, two negatively charged electrons, or 2 anions all repel one another. Both cations and anions, as well as protons and electrons, are drawn to one another.

Calculating the Electrostatic Force Using Coulomb’s Law

Coulomb’s law may be used to determine the magnitude or force of the attraction or repulsion between two charged bodies:

F = kq1q2/r2

Here, r is the distance that exists between the centers of both electric charges, q1, and q2 represent the 2 electric charges, and F is the force. K is the proportionality factor. The unit k in the centimeter-gram-second system is set to 1 in a vacuum. Despite having measured sizes, Coulomb’s law regards protons and ions as point charges.

The common electric phenomenon called static electricity occurs when charged particles are transmitted from one body to another. An attractive force forms between two items, for instance, when the two things rub shared, especially if both of them were insulators and the air is dry around them. The one that gains electrons is negatively charged, whereas the one that loses them is positively charged.

The attraction among charges of the opposite sign is what is known as the force. The characteristics of the force in question were previously discussed, and Coulomb’s law takes these characteristics into account. According to Coulomb’s law, a charge Q2 over a distance r will exert an electric force on a charge Q1 under these conditions.

Superposition Principle of Electrostatic Force

The superposition principle, a key characteristic of the electromagnetic field, is shown by this computation. This concept states that a field resulting from several sources is created by adding the distinct fields of each source.

Figure 3 illustrates the concept, showing how the combination of the fields from all of the sources determines the electric field resulting from many sources. In this instance, the fields caused by Q2 and Q3 are added to create the electric field in the position of Q1.

Studies of electric fields across a very broad range of magnitudes have proven the superposition principle’s viability. An electric field created by a collection of charges is a vector in nature, which adds a great deal of complexity. Providing either the value of magnitude & the direction at each place is necessary to specify the field at every location in space. This requires understanding the size of the x, y, and z components of the magnetic field at each location in space using the Cartesian coordinate system.

If a scalar function having magnitude and sign could be used to determine the magnitude of the electric field vector at any given location in space, things would be considerably easier.

Types of Electrostatic Force

Three-point charges

Using two neighboring charges as our starting point, we apply Coulomb’s Law to calculate the force acting on a third charge. On all vertices of a triangle measuring 30°, 60°, and 90°, respectively, we placed three charges.

Our test charge is q0, q1, and q2 with a black outline.

Line of charge with a point charge at the end

The total charge of a line of charge LL meters long is QQ. Assume that the line’s entire charge, Q, is distributed evenly. The line’s one end is positioned aa meters from a point charge, q.

Determine the total force acting on a charge Qq that is located away from the final point of a line of charges.

The total charge in the line is Q coulombs. Thinking of the line as a collection of distinct point charges seated side by side might help us tackle this issue. We add together (integrate) the separate forces from every single charge in the path to determine the overall force on Qq from the line.

The charge density of a line is determined by dividing the L/Q in coulombs/meter.