4/30/2015

The lab for today required the use of an RLC circuit.

RLC Circuit Built

We built the circuit using a 1.1Ω resistor(R1), a 47 Ω resistor (R2), a 10uF capacitor and a 1uH inductor.  This circuit was built so that R2 and the inductor were in series while together being in parallel with the other components in the circuit.

Graph of Step Function Through RLC Circuit

After building the circuit we then sent a step function voltage through the RLC circuit using an Analog Discovery and measured it with the on board oscilloscope.

Pre-Lab & Results

Above is our results and calculations.

Summary:

Today we learned how to analyze circuits containing a resistor, capacitor and an inductor in parallel. There are three possible cases that may occur in a RLC circuit which may result in the circuit being over damped, under damped, or  critically damped. The over damped case occurs when (α > ω_o ), critically damped case (α = ω_o ) and under damped case (α < ω_o ). Using these three cases we are able to determine an equation for the voltage or current as a function of time.