AC Circuits

Pre Lab Activity

Staff contact
Lab
Location

Mark Judge
Electrical & Controls Lab

(2.02)

nd

2 Floor
The Diamond
1

Contribution to marks:
Pre-lab: 10%
During lab: 10%
Post-lab: 80%
(added to PN2)

AC Circuits
EEE123 Pre Lab
Pre-Lab Activity

This section must be completed before arriving at your lab session. It will be marked by a
lab academic, teaching technician or lab demonstrator during the beginning of the session.
You may start your experiment before this section has been marked.

1
1.1

Aims and objectives

Aims
To demonstrate the behaviour of AC passive circuits
to introduce phase, phasor, complex impedance and resonance

1.2

Objectives.

To build and test an RC circuit

To build and test an RLC series circuit

To build and test an RLC parallel circuit

Learning outcomes

Be able to identify the behaviour or an RC and RLC circuits in parallel or series

Be able to calculate frequency response and time response for RC and RLC circuits
Be able to tests and record data for frequency response and time response for RC
and RLC circuits

Background R, L & C Circuits Read This

The aim of this experiment are to illustrate the behaviour of AC passive circuits and
to introduce the concepts of phase, phasor diagrams, complex impedance, and
2

resonance which you have studied as part of the EEE123a/EEE140/EEE218 (Electric

Circuits) module.
This section briefly introduces some ideas from the Electric Circuits module.
3.1

Theory for Task 1 Series RC Circuit

Consider an alternating current i I sin(2ft ) flowing through a resistor R. The voltage

vr across the resistor is in phase with the current and:

vR i R I R sin2 f t

(1)

If, however, the current flows through a capacitor, C, the resulting voltage across the
capacitor is out of phase by 90 with respect to i, so:
vC

I
cos2 f t
2 f C

(2)

If the current flows through an inductor, L, the resulting voltage across the inductor
is:

vL 2 f L I cos2 f t

(3)

One way to represent these voltages is as a phasor rotating with angular velocity
=2f around the origin of Cartesian coordinates x,y. The length of the phasor
represents its magnitude and the direction is determined by its phase relative to
some reference (in our case the current phasor). Voltages can be combined by the
rules of phasor addition.
A mathematically convenient method of representing these phasors is as complex
numbers. Here the phasors are drawn in the complex plane where x is the real axis
(our reference axis) and y is the imaginary axis. Equations (1) to (3) are then
represented by:

VR I R
VC

I
j C

(4)

V L j L I
where the line over the symbol denotes a complex number.
Instantaneous currents and voltages are interpreted as the real parts of their
corresponding phasors. As an example we will now consider a circuit containing a
resistor and a capacitor.

Figure 1 shows a series connection of a resistor and capacitor.

Figure 1: Series Connection of a Capacitor and Resistor

Since this is a series combination of a resistor, R, and a capacitor, C, then the same
current will flow through both components. In constructing our phasor diagram it is
therefore more convenient to take the current phasor as reference. As shown in the
previous section, the voltage across the resistor is in phase with the current whereas
the voltage across the capacitor lags the current by 90 (C I V I L). We can then
construct our phasor diagram for the RC circuit as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Phasor Diagram for the RC Circuit

The total voltage across the pair is just the sum of the voltages across each - but we
must take account of the phase. In Figure 2 we simply do this by adding the phasors.
Thus by simple geometry the magnitude of the voltage, V, is given by:

V V V I R
C
2
R

2
C

(5)

The phase angle, , between V and I is given by:

VC
VR

tan 1

1
tan 1

CR

(6)

Using the alternative complex number description we get:

V VR VC I R

jC
therefore:

(7)

1
IZ
V I R
jC

Where Z is the complex impedance - a term which specifies the relative phase and
magnitude between V and I. So to get the magnitude and phase we just need to
evaluate the magnitude and phase of Z.

V I Z I

1
2
R 2 2
C

(8)

And the phase angle, , is obtained from:

imaginary part of Z
1
tan 1

CR
real part of Z

tan 1

3.2

(9)

Theory for Task 2 The Series Resonance Circuit RLC

When a circuit contains resistance, R, capacitance, C and inductance, L, some very

interesting and useful frequency dependent phenomena can be observed. These are
lumped together under the name resonance. In this lab we will investigate two
examples, a series resonant circuit and a parallel resonant circuit.
The circuit used in Exercise 1 now has an inductor added to it to form a series
resonant circuit as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Series Resonant Circuit

When a sinusoidal voltage is applied across the terminals A and B of the series RLC
circuit shown in Figure 3, the current flowing is given by:

V
1

R j L

(10)

If we take the current, I, as reference the phasor diagram is as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Phasor Diagram for a Series Resonant Circuit

As shown in the phasor diagram, VL leads I by 90 (C I V I L) and VC lags I by 90 (C I

V I L). At low frequencies VC>>VL and the circuit appears to be capacitive, whereas at
high frequencies VL>>VC and the circuit appears to be inductive.
The interesting phenomenon of "resonance" occurs at a particular frequency fr, the
"resonant" frequency, where the magnitude of the voltage across the inductor, VL, is
equal to that across the capacitor, VC, i.e.:

VL VC

or:
I r L

rC

(11)

and hence:
fr

1
2 LC

In these circumstances the phasor voltages due to the capacitor and inductor are
equal and opposite, so the supply voltage across AB is dropped entirely across the
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resistor. (i.e. V=VR) Under these conditions V is in phase with I and the circuit
appears like a pure resistor.
The bandwidth, f, of the circuit is defined as the frequency between the half power
points at which the power dissipated is half that at resonance. In this case this
corresponds to the point where the current flowing through the circuit is related to
that at resonance, Ir, by:

I
I r
2

or

Z Zr 2

Note that, although at resonance V=VR, this does not mean that no voltage is being
developed across L and C. In fact a voltage is developed across each component but
they are opposite in sign and, at resonance, of equal magnitude. At resonance these
voltages are given by:

V
QV
R
1
1 V
VC
Ir
QV
rC
rC R
VL r LI r r L

(12)

where Q is called the quality factor and is the measure of magnification in voltage
that occurs at resonance.
Essentially what is happening is that energy is being transferred backwards and forwards
between L and C, without drawing on the external circuit. Q is a measure of how large this
stored energy is. Since we know the resonant frequency it is trivial to show that for this
series circuit:
1 L
(13)
Q
R C
also a measure of the "sharpness" of the resonance curve. It can be shown that:
f
Q r
f

(14)

In tuned circuits Q often has values in the range 10-106, so |VL| and |VC| at resonance
can be many times the supply voltage. Hence the alternative name for Q is the
magnification factor.
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3.3

Theory for Task 2 The Parallel Resonance Circuit RLC

Figure 5: Parallel Resonant Circuit

Resonance can also occur in a parallel resonant circuit as in Figure 5. In this case we
would draw the phasor diagrams in terms of the component currents taking V as the
reference since this is common to each element. Again we can deal with this
mathematically by writing the current in terms of the complex impedance:
I

V
Z

1
1

Z j C

(15)

Again resonance occurs when the imaginary part of this equals zero, i.e. C = 1/L.
This exercise will show resonant effects in a parallel circuit which is slightly more
complex as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Parallel Resonant Circuit

Pre Lab Task

YOU MUST COMPLETE THESE CALCULATIONS & BRING TO CLASS
1. For the first task you will build a series RC, using these values, C=0.1F,
R=1.2k , V= 1.5Vrms @ 2kHz , calculate the impedance of the circuit at 2kHz
2. For the second task you will build a series RLC circuit using these values,
R=100, L=4.7mH and C=0.01F, calculate the resonant frequency.
3. For the third task you will build a parallel RLC circuit, using R=1.2k, L=4.7mH
and C=0.01F

Calculate the Z (impedance) for the LC combination at 2kHz.

Hint the answer to (3) this is NOT straight out of the notes and you need to really
think about what you have read and make sure you understand it before answering.
YOU MUST NOW COMPLETE THE MOLE QUIZ USING THESE ANSWERS
The 10% marks are allocated to the MOLE quiz only, and will close 1 hour
before the lab is due to start.

4 Marking this is taken off the MOLE activity and is not

needed
Marking scheme to be completed by staff at the start of the session
Student is on the register:
Health and safety online activity
Pass
Fail
Yes No
Experimental induction online activity
Pass
Fail
Comments from lab academic, teaching technician or demonstrator