Laboratory Experiment no.

15

FREQUENCY
RESPONSE OF AN
R-L AND R-C CIRCUIT

Date performed: March 5, 2013

Date submitted: March 12, 2013

Members:
ONSAY, MARILOU M.
PAGLINAWAN, PAUL GEMAR R.
PARMA, RHONIEL B.

I.

OBJECTIVE OF THE EXPERIMENT

All reactive circuits are frequency sensitive. When such circuits are
used to couple an ac voltage from a source to a load, the load voltage will be
frequency dependent. The purpose of this experiment is to examine the
frequency dependence of such circuits and to gain experience in predicting
this characteristic.

II.

THEORY
RC Circuits

A resistor-capacitor circuit (RC circuit) is a fundamental electronic circuit

that represents a simple analog filter.

Low Pass Filters

A low pass filter is a filter that allows low frequencies through and attenuates
frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The cutoff frequency is
determined by the R and C values used to build the filter.

the load. At
so
an open circuit.

A low pass filter is constructed by placing a

resistor in series with a load and a capacitor in parallel with
low frequencies, the capacitor has time to charge up, and
the voltage across the capacitor is almost equal to the
input voltage, and the capacitor can be represented as

At high frequencies, the capacitor is only able to charge up to a small value

before the input switches direction, and the capacitor begins to discharge.
With this, the output increases and decreases only a fraction of the amount
the input actually goes up and down. The faster the input switches, the
slower the output switches due to the time delay imparted by the capacitor.
Therefore, since only a small fraction of the input is able to flow through as
Vout, the remainder of the input flows through the capacitor to ground. With
this, the capacitor behaves wire, short circuiting to ground.
Another way of considering the behavior of this circuit is to consider the
reactance of the circuit at low and high frequencies. When the input is
approximated to be DC (i.e. low frequency), the DC cannot flow through the
capacitor, and thus the input must exit via the V out path. This would be the
same as treating the capacitor as an open circuit, or effectively removing it
from the circuit.
With an AC input, it is able to flow very well through the capacitor, and the
input flows almost entirely through the capacitor, through to ground, and
thus is analogous to replacing the capacitor with a wire and effectively short
circuiting to ground.
High Pass Filters
High pass filters attenuate frequencies that
lower than the cutoff frequency that the filter is designed
pass filter with a very low cutoff frequency is especially
building circuits because it can be used to block
component of a signal, which may be undesired, and passes
other components of the signal. The simplest high pass filter is
by the RC circuit to the right.

are
for. A high
useful
in
the DC
virtually all
represented

Time constant & Cutoff frequency

An important value to consider when designing an RC circuit, is the value of
the time constant = R C. This is the time it takes the capacitor to charge
through the resistor, to a value of 63.2% of full charge, or to discharge the
capacitor to 36.8% of its initial full charge.
The most critical design parameter in
RC circuits is the cutoff frequency fc. A
low
pass
filter
will
attenuate
frequencies f>fc , high pass filter will
only pass frequencies f>fc, and a
bandpass filter has a lower cutoff
frequency flo and a higher cutoff
frequency fhi and will only pass
frequencies
flo<f<fhi.
The
cutoff
frequency fc is the frequency above or
below which the power of the circuit, which is most often a filter, is the
input power. Since P = V2/R, half the power is proportional to sqrt(1/2) the
voltage. This is also referred to as the =3dB point, or the knee frequency,
due to the bending of the curve of the bode plot, as seen in the figure to the
right.
dB (deciBel) is a way of comparing two signals. To compare two voltages
with amplitude A2 and A1:

A2

A1

dB 20 log10

Note that if A2 is less than A1 their ratio will be less than 1 and less than 0 in
dB.

The time constant is related to the cutoff frequency by the following

expression:

or

III.

METHOD OF EXPERIMENT
A. Experimental Set-up

B. Outline of Experimental Procedure

1. Compute the corner frequency of the network in Fig. 15.1.
2. Plot the expected frequency-response curve.
3. Set the generator to 5 V at 200 cps and measure and record
the output voltage.
4. Construct the circuit in Figure 15.1.
5. Measure and record the output voltage at each frequency
given.
6. Repeat steps 1 to 5 for the other circuit in Fig. 15.2.

7. Compute the attenuation of each network at each frequency.

8. Plot the actual frequency-response curve.

IV.

V.

C. Outline of Calculation
1. Calculate the corner frequency.
2. Compute for the attenuation at each frequency.
EQUIPMENT LIST
Oscilloscope
Digital Multimeter
Function Generator
4.7 F capacitor
33-ohm resistor
220-ohm resistor
DATA SECTION
Table 15

ei= 5 V
Frequency
(cps)

First Network
fo= 1026.144 Hz
Attenuation in
eo
dB

200

4.47

-0.973

300

4.02

-1.895

400

3.55

-2.975

500

3.13

-4.069

600

2.79

-5.067

700

2.48

-6.090

800

2.28

-6.821

900

2.06

-7.702

1000
2K

1.89
0.97

-8.450
-14.199

Second Network
fo= 153.92 Hz
Attenuation in
eo
dB
3.44
1
-3.246
3.75
2
-2.494
3.87
9
-2.205
3.94
3
-2.063
3.97
2
-1.999
3.98
8
-1.964
3.99
6
-1.947
3.99
8
-1.943
3.99
7
-1.945
3.81
-2.350

3K
4K
5K
6K
7K
8K
9K
10K

5
0.62
6
0.44
3
0.33
0.25
9
0.20
4
0.16
6
0.13
5
0.11
2

-18.048
-21.051
-23.609
-25.713
-27.787
-29.577
-31.373
-32.995

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATIONS

5
3.71
6
3.30
5
3.28
3
3.09
5
2.89
3
2.70
6
2.53
6
2.37
9

-2.578
-3.596
-3.654
-4.166
-4.752
-5.333
-5.896
-6.452

VI.

SAMPLE COMPUTATIONS
1. Computing the corner frequency.
Given: R= 33 ; C = 4.7 F;

f O=

1
1
=
2 RC 2 ( 33)( 4.7 x 106 )

f O =1026.1441 Hz
2. Computing the attenuation.
Given: ei = 5 V; eo = 4.47:

attenuationdB=20 log

eO
4.47
=20 log
ei
5

attenuationdB=0.9732

ANALYSIS GUIDE
In the analysis of the experiment you should compare the
actual and predicted curves and discuss any disagreement between
them. Also, discuss why the internal impedance of the generator did
not require consideration.

PROBLEM:

1. What would be the corner frequency in the curve of the circuit in

Fig. 13.3 if R=10 kilohms and C=0.033uF?
2. Make a sketch showing the slopes and corner frequencies that
would result if the circuit in Prob. 1 were connected to the eo
terminals of figure 12.2?