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Studying the impedance of resistors and capacitors an a/c circuit

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  • 16-03-2015 8:29pm
    #1
    Odrevan
    Registered Users Posts: 41 ✭


    Hey, so this board was fierce helpful the last time so I'm coming here again begging for your wisdom! I'm a first year student in UCC studying Physics & Astrophysics, and we have an experiment at the end of the week where we've to find values of capacitance and resistance in a series combination. Now it wasn't supposed to be 'til next week so I'm panicking now with the time pressure!

    Anyway, you're given:
    *the unknown series RC combination
    *a known, reference resistor, R_ref
    *a variable frequency signal generator (range = 0-1 kHz)
    *a digital multimemter (for voltage & freq. only)

    Also, restriction:
    *RC combination put in an enclosed box, so only input and output terminals are accessible

    So yeah, I was wondering can someone help figure out how to measure C & R and the general procedure for the experiment?

    Thanks & happy Paddy's day!


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    #2
    Michael Collins
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,849 Mod ✭✭✭✭Michael Collins


    OK, so you have a series RC circuit in a closed box so you don't know the values of R and C, but you can perform measurements on the two terminals coming from the RC circuit, so far so good!

    So in keeping with the tradition of the forum, I can help, but not give you an answer. My help is going to be in the form of leading questions!

    Q1: What is the impedance of the series combination of the Resistor and the Capacitor? Give this as a function of angular frequency, i.e.

    Z(w) = ?

    where w is angular frequency, measured in rad/s.

    Q2: Convert this to a function of frequency f, where f is measured in Hz.

    Q3: Pick two distinct frequencies, within the range of your signal generator, and write two equations for the impedance at these two frequencies.


    If you reply with the answers to the above I'll check that they are correct, and we can go from there.


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