LAB Handout No.

04 EE-208112L

EE–208112L Electrical Network Analysis Lab

LAB No: 04

To Observe and measure Response of series RLC circuit to

AC input

Submitted By
Sameer Ali (240401024)
Muhammad Abubakar (240401006)

Submitted To
Mr. Mudassir Qamar Raja

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 LAB Handout No. 04 EE-208112L

Objectives:
By the end of the lab the student should be able to:
1. Examine the characteristics of AC circuits which contain simple combinations of
capacitors, inductors and resistors
2. Learn about resonance.
3. Measure resonance curves for an RLC circuit.
4. Investigate the relationships between voltage and current in circuits containing
inductance and capacitance, when alternating voltages are applied.
5. Test the frequency dependence of capacitive and inductive reactance.

Equipment
1. Function generator
2. Oscilloscope
3. Digital Multimeter (DMM)

Introduction
Thus far we have seen that the three basic passive components, R, L and C have
very different phase relationships to each other when connected to a sinusoidal AC
supply. In a pure ohmic resistor the voltage waveforms are “in-phase” with the current. In
a pure inductance the voltage waveform “leads” the current by 90 o, giving us the
expression of ELI. In a pure capacitance the voltage waveform “lags” the current by 90 o,
giving us the expression of ICE.
This Phase Difference, Φ depends upon the reactive value of the components
being used and hopefully by now we know that reactance, ( X ) is zero if the element is
resistive, positive if the element is inductive and negative if the element is capacitive
giving the resulting impedance values as:

Element Impedance

Circuit
Resistance, (R) Reactance, (X) Impedance, (Z)
Element

Resistor R 0

Inductor 0 ωL

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Capacitor 0

Instead of analyzing each passive element separately, we can combine all three together
into a series RLC circuit. The analysis of a series RLC circuit is the same as that for the
dual series RL and RC circuits we looked at previously, except this time we need to take
into account the magnitudes of both XL and XC to find the overall circuit reactance. Series
RLC circuits are classed as second-order circuits because they contain two energy storage
elements, an inductance L and a capacitance C. Consider the RLC circuit below.

Series RLC Circuit

The series RLC circuit above

has a single loop with the
instantaneous current flowing through
the loop being the same for each circuit
element. Since the inductive and
capacitive reactance’s are a function of
frequency, the sinusoidal response of a
series RLC circuit will vary with the applied frequency, (ƒ). Therefore the
individual voltage drops across each circuit element of R, L and C element will be “out-
of-phase” with each other as defined by:

* i(t) = Imax sin(ωt)

* The instantaneous voltage across a pure resistor, VR is “in-phase” with the current.
* The instantaneous voltage across a pure inductor, VL “leads” the current by 90o
* The instantaneous voltage across a pure capacitor, VC “lags” the current by 90o
* Therefore, VL and VC are 180o “out-of-phase” and in opposition to each other.
Then the amplitude of the source voltage across all three components in a series RLC
circuit is made up of the three individual component voltages, VR, VL and VC with the
current common to all three components. The vector diagrams will therefore have the
current vector as their reference with the three voltage vectors being plotted with respect
to this reference as shown below.

Individual Voltage Vectors

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 LAB Handout No. 04 EE-208112L

This means then that we cannot simply add together VR, VL and VC to find the supply
voltage, VS across all three components as all three voltage vectors point in different
directions with regards to the current vector. Therefore we will have to find the supply
voltage, VS as the Phasor Sum of the three component voltages combined together
vectorially.
Kirchoff’s voltage law ( KVL ) for both loop and nodal circuits states that around
any closed loop the sum of voltage drops around the loop equals the sum of the EMF’s.
Then applying this law to these three voltages will give us the amplitude of the source
voltage, VS as.
Instantaneous Voltages for a Series RLC Circuit

The phasor diagram for a series RLC circuit is produced by combining together the three
individual phasors above and adding these voltages vectorially. Since the current flowing
through the circuit is common to all three circuit elements we can use this as the
reference vector with the three voltage vectors drawn relative to this at their
corresponding angles.
The resulting vector VS is obtained by adding together two of the vectors, VL and VC and
then adding this sum to the remaining vector VR. The resulting angle obtained
between VS and i will be the circuits phase angle as shown below.
Phasor Diagram for a Series RLC Circuit

We can see from the phasor diagram on the right hand side above that the voltage vectors
produce a rectangular triangle, comprising of hypotenuse VS, horizontal axis VR and

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 LAB Handout No. 04 EE-208112L

vertical axis VL – VC Hopefully you will notice then, that this forms our old favourite
the Voltage Triangle and we can therefore use Pythagoras’s theorem on this voltage
triangle to mathematically obtain the value of VS as shown.

Voltage Triangle for a Series RLC Circuit

Please note that when using the above equation, the final reactive voltage must always be
positive in value, that is the smallest voltage must always be taken away from the largest
voltage we can not have a negative voltage added to VR so it is correct to
have VL – VC or VC – VL. The smallest value from the largest otherwise the calculation
of VS will be incorrect.
We know from above that the current has the same amplitude and phase in all the
components of a series RLC circuit. Then the voltage across each component can also be
described mathematically according to the current flowing through, and the voltage
across each element as.

By substituting these values into Pythagoras’s equation above for the voltage triangle will
give us:

So we can see that the amplitude of the source voltage is proportional to the amplitude of
the current flowing through the circuit. This proportionality constant is called
the Impedance of the circuit which ultimately depends upon the resistance and the
inductive and capacitive reactance’s.
Then in the series RLC circuit above, it can be seen that the opposition to current flow is
made up of three components, XL, XC and R with the reactance, XT of any series RLC

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 LAB Handout No. 04 EE-208112L

circuit being defined as:XT = XL – XC or XT = XC – XL with the total impedance of the

circuit being thought of as the voltage source required to drive a current through it.

The Impedance of a Series RLC Circuit

As the three vector voltages are out-of-phase with each other, XL, XC and R must also be
“out-of-phase” with each other with the relationship between R, XL and XC being the
vector sum of these three components thereby giving us the circuits overall impedance, Z.
These circuit impedance’s can be drawn and represented by an Impedance Triangle as
shown below.

The Impedance Triangle for a Series RLC Circuit

The impedance Z of a series RLC circuit depends upon the angular frequency, ω as
do XL and XC If the capacitive reactance is greater than the inductive
reactance, XC > XL then the overall circuit reactance is capacitive giving a leading phase
angle. Likewise, if the inductive reactance is greater than the capacitive
reactance, XL > XC then the overall circuit reactance is inductive giving the series circuit a
lagging phase angle. If the two reactance’s are the same and XL = XC then the angular
frequency at which this occurs is called the resonant frequency and produces the effect
of resonance which we will look at in more detail in another tutorial.
Then the magnitude of the current depends upon the frequency applied to the series RLC
circuit. When impedance, Z is at its maximum, the current is a minimum and likewise,
when Z is at its minimum, the current is at maximum. So the above equation for
impedance can be re-written as:

The phase angle, θ between the source voltage, VS and the current, i is the same as for the
angle between Z and R in the impedance triangle. This phase angle may be positive or
negative in value depending on whether the source voltage leads or lags the circuit
current and can be calculated mathematically from the ohmic values of the impedance
triangle as:

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 LAB Handout No. 04 EE-208112L

Exercises
1. Build a series RLC circuit having values of C=33uF, L=47mH and
R=27Ω.Calculate and measure the following quantities as a function of frequency
value of 100Hz.

Frequency=100Hz
Theoretical Findings Practical Results
Vin=5V Vin=10V
R=27Ω R=26.58Ω
C=32uF C=32uF
f=100Hz f=100Hz
Z=33.7 Z=33.7
I=47mH I=45mH
Vr=2.7 Vr=2.7
Vc=2.1 Vc=2.1
VL=3.2 VL=3.2
VLC=7.92 VLC=7.92
Vs=5.65 Vs=5.65
θ=36.77 θ=

Wave Form

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Practical

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Circuit

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