Lab Report

EXPERIMENT TITLE: The AC Circuit

DATE: 08/7/15

AUTHOR’S NAME: Hung Luu

LAB PARTNERS’ NAMES: Whitney Le, Mary Johnson, Janelle Buchanon

OBJECTIVES OF THE EXPERIMENT: The objective of this experiment is to successfully setup a

RLC and RC circuit and use the AC voltmeter to measure the voltage across the elements.
Additionally, this experiment will also help in computing the inductance, capacitance, reactance,
and the phase angles.

BASIC THEORY: An RLC circuit is a circuit consists of a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor. In
direct current (DC) circuits, the current and voltage do not change with time. In an AC circuit,
however, we typically apply a periodic signal, the simplest of which is sinusoidal

V =V 0 sin( ω t).

Note that ω is the angular frequency (measured in radians per second), and is related to the
oscillation frequency f by ω=2 πf

If we applied this sinusoidal voltage source to a resistor, then Ohm’s law would tell us that the
current through the resistor at any instant of time would be given by

V V0
i= = sin ( ω t )=I 0 sin(ω t)
R R

Note that every time the voltage V reaches a maximum, the current i reaches a maximum. The
same is true for the voltage and current reaching zero or a minimum. We then say that, for a
resistor, the voltage and current are "in phase." Note also that Ohm’s law relates the amplitudes
V0 and I0.

This behavior is not the same for a capacitor or an inductor when connected to a sinusoidal
voltage source. This is because the voltage and current in these devices are related to each
other through a time derivative. For instance, the voltage across an inductor is proportional to
the rate of change of current (di/dt) and not simply to i. For inductors and capacitors, the
voltage and current are not in phase. In fact, for a single inductor or a single capacitor
connected to a sinusoidal source, the current and voltage are 90° out of phase. In other words,
when V reaches a maximum or minimum, i is zero and vice-versa. For a capacitor, the current i is
90° ahead of the voltage, and in an inductor, the current is 90° behind the voltage. The
amplitudes I0 and V0 are related to each other by something that sort of looks like Ohm's Law:

Io
V 0=I 0 X C = ( capacitor )
ωC

V 0=I 0 X L =I o ωL(inductor )

Note that the quantity that looks like a "resistance" (technically called a "reactance") changes
with frequency. From the above equation, we can see that a capacitor acts like it has a high
reactance at low frequencies and a low reactance at high frequencies, while for an inductor it's
the other way around.

V0
For a series RLC circuit, the amplitude of the current is given by I 0= , where Z is known as
Z
the impedance of the circuit (measured in units of ohms), and is given by

Z =√ R 2+( X L −X C )2

DATA AND CALCULATIONS: R = 1.061 k r = 1059 

f AC Digital Voltmeter Calculated % dif
Vrms
Vrms VRrms VLrms VCrms

50 4.0 0.615 0.026 3.95 3.97 0.75

100 4.01 1.198 0.058 3.85 3.98 0.5

500 4.0 3.46 0.52 2.25 3.87 3.25

1000 4.0 3.84 1.125 1.258 3.84 4.0

5000 4.01 2.34 3.33 0.15 3.95 1.25

f Irms XL XC Z L C 

50 5.8E-4 44.86 6815 6852 0.143 4.67E-7 -81.1

100 0.001 51.37 3409 3521 0.082 4.67E-7 -72.5

500 0.003 173.3 1283 1535 0.055 2.48E-7 -46.3

1000 0.004 281.3 314.5 1061 0.045 5.06E-7 -1.79

5000 0.002 1665 75 1911 0.053 4.24E-7 56.3

Vrms = 7.65 V R = 5000  C = 0.5 F

f 30 50 100 300 500

VR 3.25 4.69 6.45 7.41 7.46

VC 6.95 5.99 4.11 1.577 0.956

RESULTS: With all the data we collected in the tables above, we computed the values below
using the following equations

V rms V 1
I rms = X C measured = Crms X C calculated =
R I rms 2 πfC

V rms
Z calculated =√ R + X C calculated
2 2
Z measured =
I rms

X C calculated
R
(¿)
V calculated =√ V Rrms 2+V Crms2 ϕ calculated=tan−1 ¿

f 30 50 100 300 500

Irms 6.5E-4 9.38E-4 0.0013 0.0015 0.0015

XC measured 1.07E-4 6386 3161 1051 637

Zmeasured 1.18E-4 8156 5885 5100 5100

XC calculated 10610 6366 3183 1061 636.6

Zcalculated 11729 8094 5927 5111 5040

Vcalculated 7.67 7.61 7.65 7.58 7.52

 calculated 64.77 51.85 32.48 11.98 7.26

ANALYSIS: The experiment was a success overall. The percentage different we got in the data
table 1 was fairly small and acceptable. However, in the data table 2, when we computed the
inductance and capacitance, the values of those 2 should not vary with the frequency at all as
they should be constant at all time. Yet the values we computed showed that L and C vary with
the frequency. We even redid our calculation a couple times but the results were still the same.
We all decided that the changes in L and C might be because of the equipment since all of the
readings were all correct. Other than that, we could not find any other reason why the values
changed with the frequency. The only thing should vary with the frequency is the impedence
because it involved with the frequency.

CONCLUSION: After doing the experiment, we now have a better understanding on how the
current and voltage are across the elements in the RLC circuit. Plus, we were also able to prove
the equations hold true.