Data and Results:

Fig 5.1: (Simulation)

Circuit
Impedance

Phase Angle

= Arc cos

83.8

(magnitude only)

Z
R

24.78

(in degrees)

Calculated

IS

0.72

amp;

Measured

IS

Calculated

IR

0.65

amp;

Measured

IR

0.7

amp

Calculated

IL

0.3

Measured

IL

0.3

amp

amp;

0.71

amp

Fig 5.2: (Simulation)

Circuit
Impedance

Phase Angle

= Arc cos

157.68

Z
R

Calculated

IS

0.76

Calculated

IR

0.699

Calculated

IC

0.299

(magnitude only)

23.10

amp;

(in degrees)

Measured

IS

amp;

Measured

IR

amp;

Measured

IC

0.761
0.7

amp
amp

0.3

amp

Fig 5.3: (Simulation)

Circuit
Impedance

Phase Angle

= Arc cos

83.87

Z
R

(magnitude only)

24.68

(in degrees)

Calculated

IS

1.192

amp;

Measured

IS

Calculated

IR

1.083

amp;

Measured

IR

=
=

1.225

amp

1.084

amp

Calculated

IL

0.332

amp;

Measured

IL

0.330

amp

Calculated

IC

0.829

amp;

Measured

IC

0.830

amp

83.8

(magnitude only)

Fig 5.1: (Actual)

Circuit
Impedance

Phase Angle

= Arc cos

Z
R

24.78

(in degrees)

Calculated

IS

0.72

amp;

Measured

IS

Calculated

IR

0.65

amp;

Measured

IR

Calculated

IL

0.3

Measured

IL

157.68

amp;

0.759

amp

0.651

amp

0.294

amp

Fig 5.2: (Actual)

Circuit
Impedance

Phase Angle

= Arc cos

Z
R

Calculated

IS

0.76

Calculated

IR

0.699

Calculated

IC

0.299

83.87

(magnitude only)

23.10

amp;

(in degrees)

Measured

IS

amp;

Measured

IR

amp;

Measured

IC

Fig 5.3: (Actual)

Circuit
Impedance

Phase Angle

= Arc cos

Z
R

(magnitude only)

24.68

(in degrees)

0.792
0.716
0.319

amp
amp
amp

Calculated

IS

1.192

amp;

Measured

IS

Calculated

IR

1.083

amp;

Measured

IR

Calculated

IL

0.332

amp;

Measured

Calculated

IC

0.829

amp;

Measured

1.199

amp

1.097

amp

IL

0.337

amp

IC

0.617

amp

VIII. Questions and Problems:

1.) Construct the vector diagram that would represent the voltage and current of each
parallel combination
a. RL

b. RC

c. RLC

d. LC

Use the voltage as the place reference

2.) Define or explain.
a. Energy current
- is a somewhat informal term that is used, on occasion, to describe the process of
energy transfer in situations where the transfer can usefully be viewed in terms of
a flow. It is particularly used when the transfer of energy is more significant to the
discussion than the process by which the energy is transferred.
b. Quadrature current
- Vectors consist of both horizontal and vertical components, while the phasor
diagram can be dissected into four regions (described as quadrants). If you track
a vector representation of an AC sinusoidal current waveform through its 360
degrees of rotation, you will find that it will occupy all quadrants of the phasor
diagram. If you have a voltage vector on the phasor diagram that lies ontop of its
associated current vector, then you have a current that is 'in phase' with its
voltage.
3.) A capacitor is placed in parallel with two inductive loads one of 20 amp at 30 deg lag and
one of 40 amp at 60 deg lag. What must be the current in the capacitor so that the
current from the external circuit shall be at unity power factor?

4.) Three parallel branches each containing one pure element have an applied voltage v=
200sin1000t volts. The branches contain R = 300 ohms, L = 0.5 H and C = 10 micro F
respectively. Find the total current, the angle between iT and the applied voltage and the
magnitude of impedance.

DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY- DASMARINAS

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

EXPERIMENT #5
IMPEDANCE OF A PARALLEL RL, RC AND RLC CIRCUIT

Dilla, Rie Alexandrea Allessa

February 6, 2015
ECE 32
13, 2015

Date Performed:
Date Submitted: February

ENGR. Juancho O. Natividad

Instructor

Discussion:
There are three basic, linear passive lumped analog circuit components: the resistor (R), the
capacitor (C), and the inductor (L). These may be combined in the RC circuit, the RL circuit, the
LC circuit, and the RLC circuit, with the abbreviations indicating which components are used.
These circuits, among them, exhibit a large number of important types of behavior that are
fundamental to much of analog electronics. In particular, they are able to act as passive filters.
The parallel RC circuit behaves very differently when AC is applied to it, than when DC is
applied. With a DC voltage, the capacitor will charge rapidly to that voltage, after which the only
current flowing will be through the resistor. But with an applied AC voltage, the capacitor cannot
ever reach a final charge, and therefore will always be carrying some current. The parallel RC
circuit is generally of less interest than the series circuit. This is largely because the output
voltage Vout is equal to the input voltage Vin; as a result, this circuit does not act as a filter on the
input signal unless fed by a current source.

The

voltage

in

parallel circuit must be

the same throughout the circuit. However, the current through R is not the same as the current
through

C.

Thus, IR is in phase with V, but IC leads V by 90.

and

shows that the capacitor current is 90 out of phase with the resistor (and

source) current.
In RL parallel circuit resistor and inductor are connected in parallel with each other and this
combination is supplied by a voltage source, Vin. The output voltage of circuit is V out. With an ac
signal applied to it, the parallel RL circuit offers significant impedance to the flow of current. This
impedance will change with frequency, since that helps determine XL, but for any given
frequency, it will not change over time.

Since the resistor

and

inductor

connected in parallel,

the input

are

voltage

is

equal to output voltage but the currents flowing in resistor and inductor are different. The parallel
RL circuit is not used as filter for voltages because in this circuit, the output voltage
equal to input voltage and for this reason it is not commonly
as compared to series RL circuit.

is
used

and shows that the inductor lags the

resistor (and source) current by 90.

The Parallel RLC Circuit is the exact opposite to the series circuit. This time instead of the
current being common to the circuit components, the applied voltage is now common to all so
we need to find the individual branch currents through each element. The total impedance, Z of
a parallel RLC circuit is calculated using the current of the circuit similar to that for a DC parallel
circuit, the difference this time is that admittance is used instead of impedance.

Parallel RLC circuit is said to have dual relationship with series RLC circuit. The total current, I S
drawn from the supply is equal to the vector sum of the resistive, inductive and capacitive
current, not the mathematic sum of the three individual branch currents, as the current flowing in
resistor, inductor and capacitor are not in same phase with each other; so they cannot be added
arithmetically. Like the series RLC circuit, we can solve this circuit using the phasor or vector
method but this time the vector diagram will have the voltage as its reference with the three
current vectors plotted with respect to the voltage. The phasor diagram for a parallel RLC circuit
is produced by combining together the three individual phasors for each component and adding
the currents vectorially.
Since the voltage across the circuit is common to all three circuit elements we can use this as
the reference vector with the three current vectors drawn relative to this at their corresponding
angles. The resulting vector IS is obtained by adding together two of the vectors, IL and IC and
then adding this sum to the remaining vector IR.

Conclusion:
In this experiment we are able to verify the ohms law for a parallel AC circuit. In a parallel circuit
we all know that voltages applied to the circuit are the same while the currents are the one
which is divided in different branches. Ohms law in a DC circuit is likely the same with the AC
but with different representations. Resistance is replaced with impedance (Z) which we
represent as a complex number. We observe that the responses of these combined elements
are much different from DC to AC. Each of the combinations: RC, RL, and RLC have their own
different behaviors which greatly affects the outcome of the circuit. Like in RC circuit the
capacitor behaves differently when in DC and when in AC, it says that when its in DC the
capacitor charges rapidly to that voltage, and that the only current flowing will be through the

resistor. But comparing it with AC voltage, the capacitor cannot even reach the final charge, and
therefore will always be carrying some current.
As we further did our experiment we learned the phase angles between current and voltage. In
an RC circuit the current in the resistor is in phase with the voltage, but capacitor current leads
voltage by 90, in an RL circuit shows that the inductor lags the resistance and the source. In
and RLC circuit its much complicated because in order to know its phase angles we must first
solve each element individually before we add it altogether. All in all the results we got as we
compare the actual to the experimental, we can say that our experiment was a successful one
because not only we got values that are close with each other but also we are able to
understand the different characteristics and be able to do all the objectives throughout the
experiment period.

Reference:
Alexander, Charles; Sadiku, Matthew (2006). Fundamentals of Electric Circuits (3, revised ed.).
McGraw-Hill. pp. 387389.