Week 12 - Alternating Current

November 21, 2012

The city lights of Prince George, British

Columbia viewed in a motion blurred
exposure. The AC blinking causes the lines
to be dotted rather than continuous.

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Exercise 12.1: Discussion Questions
a) The current in an ac power line changes direction 120 times per second, and its average value is zero.
Explain how it’s possible for power to be transmitted in such a system.

Answer:
Power can be transmitted because the power delivered to another circuit is

p = iv, (1)

I.e. the product between the curent and the voltage, and the average power is not necessarily zero.
For example if the circuit to which the ac power line is connected is a pure resistor, then v = iR and
the instantaneous power is

p = i2 R. (2)
1 Figure is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:City_lights_in_motion.jpg

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 This is always positive which means that power is dissipated in the resistor at any moment. The
average power is given by

1 2
Pav = I R. (3)
2

b) Fluorescent lights often use an inductor, known as ballast to limit current through the tubes. Why
is it better to use inductor than a resistor for this purpose?

Answer:
One reason that the inductor is preferable over the resistor is that the average power dissipated in
the inductor is practically zero. This means that we dont waste precious energy on just limiting the
current so that everything can go into producing visible light.
The applied voltage does work on the current as the back emf resists a rising current, this energy is
then stored in the magnetic fields of the inductor and given back when the emf of the inductor does
work on a decreasing current.

c) A light bulb and a parallel-plate capacitor with air between the plates are connected in series to an ac
source. What happens to the brightness of the bulb when a dielectric is inserted between the plates?
Explain.

Answer:
The impedance of the circuit goes down as the dielectric is inserted so the current amplitude goes up
and more power is delivered to the bulb. Therefore the bulb glows brighter. Mathematically this is
seen by looking at the expression for the impedance of the circuit

s  2
1
q
Z= R2 + XC2 = R2 + (4)
ωC0

Now as the dielectric is inserted the capacitane of the goes to C = KC0 whereK is the dielecric
constant and since K > 1 the capacitive reactance goes down. Physically what happens is that
when the dielectric is inserted, the dipoles in the dielectric is aligned in such a way that they create
an additional elecric field which opposes the original. The electric field weakens which allows more
charge to accumulate on the plates for the voltage provided by the ac source. The consequence of the
capacitor allowing for a greater amount of charge to accumulate is that a greater current can flow in
the circuit.

d) Can a transformer be used with dc? Explain. What happens when a transformer designed for 230 V
ac is conneced to a 230 V dc line?

Answer:
No it can not! One of the great advantages of ac over dc is that voltages can be stepped up and down
using a transformer. This allows for high voltage transmission which very effectively reduces energy
loss due to heating of transmission wires.
If you connect a dc line to any transformer it will not do anything for you. The primary will not
even deliver an emf to the secondary. This is because the emf in the secondary was created by a

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 flux change trough it’s coil. With no changing current we won’t have changing magnetic fields and
therefore no changing flux.

Exercise 12.2: Off to the USA!

You take your hair blower off the USA, where the electrical outlets puts out 120 V (rms) instead of the
230 V (rms) found here in Norway. The blower puts out 1600 W (average) at 230 V.
a) What could you do to operate your blower via the 120 V line in USA?

Answer: Get a transformer with the ratio

N2 V2 23
= = . (5)
N1 V1 12

b) What current will your blower draw from an outlet in USA?

Answer:

I = 13.3 A (6)

c) What resistance will your blower appear to have when operated at 120 V?

Answer:

Ref f = 9 Ω. (7)

Figure 1

Exercise 12.3: The L-R-C Parallel Circuit

A resistor, inductor, and capacitor are connected in parallel to an ac source with voltage amplitude V
and angular frequency ω. This is shown in figure 1. Let the source voltage be given by v = V cos ωt.

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a) Show that the instantaneous voltages vR , vL and vC at any instant are equal to v and that i =
iR + iL + iC , where i is the current through the source and iR , iL and iC are the currents trough the
resistor, inductor and capacitor, respectively.
b) What are the phases of iR , iL and iC with respect to v? Use current phasors to represent i, iR , iL
and iC . In a phasor diagram, show the phases of these four currents with respect to v.
c) Use the phasor diagram in (b) to show that the current amplitude I for the current i trough the
source is given by q
I = IR 2 + (I − I )2 . (8)
C L

d) Show that the result of part (d) can be written as I = V /Z with

s  2
1 1 1
= + ωC − . (9)
Z R2 ωL

Answer:
s  2
1 1 1
= + ωC − . (10)
Z R2 ωL

Exercise 12.4:
An L-R-C parallel circuit is connected to an ac source of constant amplitude V and variable angular
frequency ω.
a) Find expressions for the amplitudes IR , IL and IC of the currents through the resistor, inductor and
capacitor as functions of ω.

Answer:
V V
IR = , IL = , IC = ωCV. (11)
R ωL

b) Graph IR , IL and IC as functions of ω for V = 200 V, R = 50 Ω, L = 1.0 H and C = 20 µF.

Answer:

c) Discuss the behaviour of IL and IC in the limits ω → 0 and ω → ∞. Explain why IL and IC behave
why they do in these limits.
d) Calculate the resonance frequency (in Hz) of the circuit, and sketch the phasor diagram at resonance.
What is the current amplitude trough the source at this frequency?

Answer:

f0 = 36.6 Hz (12)

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 Figure 2

V
I= = 4.0 A. (13)
R

e) At the resonance frequency, what is the current amplitude trough the resistor, through the inductor
and trough the capacitor?

Answer:

IL = IC = 146 mA (14)

V
IR = = 4 A. (15)
R

Exercise 12.5: A High-Pass Filter

One application of of L-C-R series circuits is to high-pass or low-pass filters, which filter out either the
low or the high frequencies in a signal. A high-pass filter is shown in figure 4, where the output voltage
(filtered signal) is taken out between the a and b terminals. Derive an expression for Vout /V , the ratio
of the output and source voltage amplitudes, as a function of the angular frequency ω of the source.
Show that when ω is small, this ratio is proportional to ω and thus also is small. Show that the ratio
approaches unity as the frequency gets large (The signal passes trough unaffected at large frequencies).

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Figure 3

Figure 4