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RLC RESONANT CIRCUITS

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5. RLC RESONANT CIRCUITS

INTRODUCTION In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at maximum amplitude at a certain frequency. This frequency is known as the system's resonant frequency. When damping is small, the resonant frequency is approximately equal to the natural frequency of the system, which is the frequency of free vibrations. A resonant object, whether mechanical, acoustic, or electrical, will probably have more than one resonant frequency (especially harmonics of the strongest resonance). It will be easy to vibrate at those frequencies, and more difficult to vibrate at other frequencies. It will "pick out" its resonant frequency from a complex excitation, such as an impulse or a wideband noise excitation. In effect, it is filtering out all frequencies other than its resonance. Electrical resonance occurs in an electric circuit at a particular resonant frequency when the impedance between the input and output of the circuit is at a minimum (or when the transfer function is at a maximum). Often this happens when the impedance between the input and output of the circuit is zero and when the transfer function equals one. Resonance of a circuit involving capacitors and inductors occurs because the collapsing magnetic field of the inductor generates an electric current in its windings that charges the capacitor, and then the discharging capacitor provides an electric current that builds the magnetic field in the inductor, and the process is repeated continuously. An analogy is a mechanical pendulum. In some cases, resonance occurs when the inductive reactance and the capacitive reactance of the circuit are of equal magnitude, causing electrical energy to oscillate between the magnetic field of the inductor and the electric field of the capacitor.

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At resonance, the series impedance of the two elements is at a minimum and the parallel impedance is at a maximum. Resonance is used for tuning and filtering, because it occurs at a particular frequency for given values of inductance and capacitance. It can be detrimental to the operation of communications circuits by causing unwanted sustained and transient oscillations that may cause noise, signal distortion, and damage to circuit elements. An RLC circuit (also known as a resonant circuit or a tuned circuit) is an electrical circuit consisting of a resistor (R), an inductor (L), and a capacitor (C), connected in series or in parallel. Tuned circuits have many applications particularly for oscillating circuits and in radio and communication engineering. They can be used to select a certain narrow range of frequencies from the total spectrum of ambient radio waves. For example, AM/FM radios with analog tuners typically use an RLC circuit to tune a radio frequency. Most commonly a variable capacitor is attached to the tuning knob, which allows you to change the value of C in the circuit and tune to stations on different frequencies. The Q factor or quality factor compares the time constant for decay of an oscillating physical system's amplitude to its oscillation period. Equivalently, it compares the frequency at which a system oscillates to the rate at which it dissipates its energy. A higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy dissipation relative to the oscillation frequency. For example, a pendulum suspended from a high-quality bearing, oscillating in air, would have a high Q, while a pendulum immersed in oil would have a low one. Generally Q is defined to be:

where is defined to be the angular frequency of the circuit (system), and the energy stored and power loss are properties of a system under consideration.

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Series Resonant Circuit:

Figure 1: Series resonant circuit

In a series RLC circuit depicted in Figure 1, there is a frequency during which XL=XC, or L = 1/C. At this particular frequency the circuit is said to be in resonance, during which its current and voltage are in phase with each other. At resonant state, the circuits impedance is minimal because the impedances of the capacitor and inductor cancel out each other leaving only the resistance, thus producing maximum magnitude of current. The resonant frequency is given by s = 1/(LC), or, fs = 1/2(LC). The Q-factor for the circuit is given by Q = sL/R. A circuit with a high Q-factor has a very sharp resonant point. At resonant state, VC = QEIN. Half-power frequencies, f1 and f2, are defined as the frequencies during which half of the power at resonance is dissipated, and the current is at 0.707 times of the resonant current. Bandwidth, BW, is defined as f2 - f1. Smaller bandwidth produces sharper resonant point. Higher values of R will result in resonant point, which is less sharp, as depicted in
Figure 2. Figure 3 shows voltages across R, L and C at a broad range of frequencies. It

can be seen that VR has an identical shape with that of I, and VR reaches a maximum value at resonance. At frequencies of f<fs, the circuit is predominantly capacitive and at f>fs, it is primarily inductive.

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Figure 2: Bandwidth and resonant point

Figure 3: Voltages across capacitor, resistor and inductor

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EXPERIMENT

Objectives 1. To validate resonant frequency equation for series and parallel resonant circuit. 2. To plot a graph of impedance and current versus frequency of a series resonant circuit. 3. To verify that input impedance is minimal at resonance (series circuit). 4. To plot a graph of current versus frequency for a parallel resonant circuit. 5. To demonstrate how input impedance varies with frequency in a parallel resonant circuit.

Components Resistors Inductor Capacitor : : : 220 10mH 0.1uF

Digital multimeter, function generator, frequencies counter.

Experiment Procedure: Series Resonant Circuit 1. 2. Assemble the circuit as shown in Figure 1. Measure and record the values of resistor and internal resistance of inductor used. Calculate the resonant frequency s and fs, using the stated and measured values of your components. Show your calculation. Calculation:

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3.

Turn on the power supply and set the frequency generator to produce the frequencies within a range of 500Hz to 10kHz using appropriate interval. Be sure to obtain more readings around the resonant frequency (ie: , 0.9fs, fs, 1.1fs).

4. 5.

Then measure the peak-to-peak of VR and VC and record the values into Table
1.

Swap the positions of the inductor and capacitor and then measure the peakto-peak voltage across the inductor, VL and record into
Table 1. For each frequency, be sure to re-set the input voltage to be at

4Vp-p. This procedure must be strictly adhered to so that the measurements are obtained from the same value of voltage source. 6. 7. Calculate the peak-to-peak current I(p-p) using Ohms Law and record the values into Table 1. Calculate the input impedance Zi and record the values into Table 1.
Table 1 Frequency response for the series resonant circuit

Frequency (Hz)

VR (p-p)

VL (p-p)

VC (p-p)

I(p-p)= VR(p-p)/R

Zi= E(p-p)/ I(p-p)

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8. 9. 10.

Plot the graph (Graph 1) of Zi versus frequency on the graph paper and label each point and the resonant frequency. At the resonant point, compare the input impedance, Zi, against the circuits total impedance, RT. (RT = R +Rl). Explain your comparison. Briefly explain how the input impedance varies with frequency. Which element is more dominant in the input impedance, at the upper and lower spectrum of the frequency?

11. 12. 13.

If input impedance is minimum at resonance, what do you expect of the current at such state? Plot a graph of Ip-p (Graph 2) versus frequency on the graph paper and give a brief comparison between your expectation and the actual result. Compare the measured maximum current (from graph) against the value calculated from the following formula: Ip-p(max) = Ep-p/RT.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

What is the frequency where V R, V L and VC are at maximum value? Does maximum V R occurs at the same frequency where I is maximum? If yes, why? Based on Graph 2, what are the resonant and half-power frequencies? Label those points on the graph, then compute the bandwidth. What is the frequency during which the E and VR are in phase with each other ?

When both elements are in-phase, what can you conclude regarding the circuits input impedance? Write your conclusion.

-THE END-

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