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April 2005
Introduction:
Waveforms plotted in Excel generally show the magnitude (Y-axis) versus time (X-axis). (See Figure 1, Data in Time Domain.) Knowing the period T of the waveform, the frequency can be calculated. Figure 2: Data in Frequency Domain
Figure 1: Data in Time Domain
150 frequency=324 Hz 100 period = 3.08 ms
Amplitude vs Frequency
140 120 324 Hz
Amplitude (units)
amplitude
50
22.63 ms
25.71 ms
0 20 -50 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
-100
frequency (Hz)
-150 Time (ms)
Sometimes experiments call for the harmonic content of a reproduced waveform. The harmonic content is a display of the magnitude of the waveform (Y-axis) versus the frequency (X-axis). This is sometimes called the frequency spectrum and it allows you to visualize a waveform according to its frequency content (see Figure 2, Data in Frequency Domain). The following steps will guide you to translate a waveform from the time domain to the frequency domain using Excel.
=2/1024*IMABS(E2)
48.828125
fs
48.828125
50000
Magnitude
Magnitude
390 Hz
390 Hz
5000
10000
15000 Frequency
20000
25000
30000
1000
2000 Frequency
3000
4000
390 Hz
Magnitude
Magnitude
390 Hz
5000
10000 Frequency
15000
1000 Frequency
1500
2000
Magnitude
390 Hz
2000
4000 Frequency
6000
8000