kapacitet

Kapacitet is a term used to denote the maximum amount or level that a system can contain, produce, store, or transmit. Originating from Latin capacitas, the word is used across disciplines to describe a potential or upper limit rather than actual performance.

In everyday use, capacity describes how much a container can hold, such as the capacity of a bottle or a tank, often expressed in liters or kilograms. In physics and engineering, capacity may refer to energy or volume storage, for example a battery's capacity in ampere-hours or a tank's capacity in cubic meters. Electrical science uses capacitance to describe a component's ability to store electrical energy, measured in farads, though this is technically a distinct term.

In production and operations management, capacity denotes the maximum output a facility can achieve over a period. Installed capacity is the designed maximum; practical capacity accounts for downtime and inefficiencies. Capacity utilization measures how fully the system is used, and bottlenecks limit throughput.

In information theory and computing, capacity can describe maximum data throughput (channel capacity) or storage capacity (bytes in a disk or memory). Channel capacity, as defined by Shannon, depends on bandwidth and noise and sets a theoretical upper bound for reliable communication.

In ecology and biology, carrying capacity is the maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely given the available resources. Capacity concepts also appear in economics and logistics, where they influence planning, investment, and pricing decisions.

Because the term spans multiple domains, the precise meaning of kapacitet depends on context, but it generally refers to an upper limit, potential, or maximum functional output of a system.