Transient Response of DC Circuits

February 11, 2019

Introduction

Circuits either operate in steady or transient state at a given time

At t→ ∞, circuit reaches steady state.

Any change, in switch position, causes transient operation of circuits.

Here, we focus on RC and RL circuits

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RC series circuit

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Charging in RC Circuits

The charging capacitor satisfies a first order differential equation that

relates the rate of change of charge to the charge on the capacitor:
q
V− − iR = 0 (1)
C
dq
i = (2)
dt
Thus, differential equation is given as
q  dq 
v− − R=0 (3)
C dt

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Contd...

Thus, rearranging the differential equation we get,

q  dq 
v− = R (4)
C dt
dt dq
= (5)
R v − Cq

Integrating both the sides,

Z t Z Q
dt dq
= (6)
0 R 0 v − Cq
Z t Z Q
dt dq
= (7)
0 RC 0 vC − q
t
− = log(q − vC ) + k (8)
RC

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Contd...
In order to find out constant k, we assume initial conditions, at t = 0,
qc (t = 0) = 0

k = − log q (9)
−t
= log(q − vC ) − log(q) (10)
RC
−t  q − vC 
= log (11)
RC q
 q − vC 
c
e −t/RC = (12)
qc
qc = vC (1 − e −t/RC ) (13)

Divide (13) by C, to get vc (t),

vc = v (1 − e −t/RC ) (14)

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What is Time Constant (τ ) ??

The product of R and C for a RC circuit is called time constant.

at t = RC , we get vc = 0.632 × v

From (14), we can observe that charging process is exponential

Depends on external parameters R and C .

At t = 5RC , we get vc = v approximately

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