AC BRIDGES

Alternating current bridges are most popular, convenient and accurate instruments for measurement of unknown
inductance, capacitance and some other related quantities. In its simplest form, ac bridges can be thought of
to be derived from the conventional dc Wheatstone bridge. An ac bridge, in its basic form, consists of four arms,
an alternating power supply, and a balance detector.

SOURCES AND DETECTORS IN AC BRIDGES

Selected frequency and discrimination against harmonic frequencies. Vibration galvanometers are most commonly
used as tuned detectors in the power frequency and low audio-frequency ranges.

Though vibration galvanometers can be designed to work as detectors over the frequency range of 5 Hz to 1000
Hz, they have highest sensitivity when operated for frequencies below 200 Hz.

Head phones or audio amplifiers are popularly used as balance detectors in ac bridges at frequencies of 250 Hz
and above, up to 3 to 4 kHz.

Transistor amplifier with frequency tuning facilities can be very effectively used as balance detectors with ac
bridges. With proper tuning, these can be used to operate at a selective band of frequencies with high sensitivity.
Such detectors can be designed to operate over a frequency range of 10 Hz to 100 kHz.
GENERAL BALANCE EQUATION FOR FOUR-ARM BRIDGE
Balance in the bridge is secured by adjusting one or more of the
bridge arms. Balance is indicated by zero response of the detector. At
balance, no current flows through the detector, i.e., there is no
potential difference across the detector, or in other words, the
potentials at points B and C are the same. This will be achieved if the
voltage drop from A to B equals the voltage drop from A to C, both in
magnitude and phase.
Thus, we can write in terms of complex quantities:

Also at balance, since no current flows through the detector,

 When using admittances in place of impedances
the product of impedances of one pair of opposite arms must be equal to the product of impedances of the other
pair of opposite arms, with the impedances expressed as complex numbers. This will mean, both magnitude and
phase angles of the complex numbers must be taken into account.
Re-writing the expressions in polar form, impedances can be expressed as where Z represents the magnitude and
θ represents the phase angle of the complex impedance.
If similar forms are written for all impedances and substituted
Thus, for balance we have,

two requirements must be met for satisfying balance condition in a bridge

Example: In the AC bridge circuit shown in Figure, the supply voltage is 20 V at 500 Hz. Arm AB is 0.25 μF pure
capacitance; arm BD is 400 Ω pure resistance and arm AC has a 120 Ω resistance in parallel with a 0.15 μF
capacitor. Find resistance and inductance or capacitance of the arm CD considering it as a series circuit.
MEASUREMENT OF SELF-INDUCTANCE
Maxwell’s Inductance Bridge
This bridge is used to measure the value of an unknown inductance by comparing it with a variable standard self-
inductance. The bridge configuration and phasor diagram under balanced condition are shown in Figure
Unknown Inductor L1 of Resistance R1 in the branch AB
Standard known Inductor L2 of Resistance R2 on arm AC

Unknown quantities can hence be calculated as