ID: 200369165

Class and Section: Enel 280 - 091

Lab: 04
Date: July 8, 2016
Group Members : Felipe Vieira Camargo (200369165)
Shuaihao Zhao (200348576)
Liu Rui (200358703)

Title of Lab
Transient response of RC circuits

Objective: The goal of our experiment was to observe step response of a

series RC circuit in order to determine the value of Capacitor used

Equipment:
Equipment used in this experiment includes
a) Enel-280 Test board
b) DC power Supply
c) 100K Ohm Resistors
d) Electrolytic Capacitor provided by Instructor

Test Method:

We ensure that our DC source is set to 12 V and then switch it off.

Switch board of our test board is also open (Off).
We connect one of the 100Kohm resistors in series with capacitor in
such way that terminals of capacitors are connected to terminals of DC
power source in order to prevent capacitor from exploding.
Then we turn on power source to check it at 12V. Using stop-watch we
record voltage across capacitor at each 2 second intervals for approx.
1 min.
We discharge the capacitor to it would drop to 0 volts by disconnecting
from + terminal of DC source.
We reconnect the wire to +ive terminal of DC power source again and
repeat the procedure again for Voltage across resistor.
We plot graph of VC vs time and find time it takes to reach 63% of
voltage i.e. 7.56. This is our tao. We also calculate time constant if
50Kohm is used resistor is used.
In the end, we connect the 2nd 100K Ohm resistor in parallel with the
previous installed one. Again using stopwatch, we plot graph to obtain
VC and VR over 1 minute time period.

Analysis:
Using the 100Kohm we got the graphic below for the capacitor voltage:

6
5
4
Capacitor Voltage (V)

3
2
1
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Time (s)

And the next plot is the current flowing through the circuit:
0.14
0.12
0.1
0.08
Current (mA)

0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Time (s)

We notice that the voltage across the capacitor starts from zero and
increases. It will increase up to the source voltage (12V), following an
exponential function. In other hand, since the capacitor voltage is increasing,

the current flowing through the circuit is decreasing. It occurs because the
capacitor tends to be an open-circuit, so there will be no current flowing.
To find we took one value from the plot. This value is 63% of final
capacitor voltage because that is the time constant, . We got approximately
106 seconds. Since = R*C and we are using 100Kohm, we are able to
calculate the value of capacitor.

C = /R = 1.04 mH.
For the next step we used another 100Kohm in parallel with the one
already installed, so we got an equivalent resistor of 50Kohm.
Knowing that =R*C, if we put the capacitor in series with a 50kohm
resistor instead of a 100kohm resistor as it was in the last sections, the time
constant, , will decrease.

=50kohm x 1.04mF
=52.03 seconds
For the 50kohm Resistor we got the graphic for Voltage plotted below:

Capacitor Voltage x Time

9
8
7
6
5

Voltage (V)

4
3
2
1
0
0

10

20

30

40

Time

And for the Current we got the graphic plotted bellow:

50

60

70

Capacitor Current x Time

0.25
0.2
0.15
Current (mA)

0.1
0.05
0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Time (s)

When we put another 100kohm resistance in parallel with the former

one, we get an equivalent resistance of 50kohm. Knowing that is equal to
'RC', if the resistance decreases, will be lower and because of that the
system response will be faster; in other words, the capacitor voltage and
current values will change faster.

Conclusion:
Our experiment in class was based in charging and discharging a
capacitor that was connected in series with a 100kohm resistor, and
measuring how that process works by taking notes every 2 seconds, to see
the behave of the capacitor.
Later we put another 100kohm resistor in parallel with the former one,
making the equivalent resistance decrease to 50kohm, and after that we did
again all the previous steps and we realized that, as the constant of time ()
is represented by =RC, if we change the resistance from 100kohm to
50kohm, the circuit's response will be faster.

70