EXPERIMENT 3

Investigation of Electric Oscillation of RL and RLC Circuits

Equipment and Materials

Science Workshop 750 Interface
Power Amplifier
Lab circuit board with available inductor coil
Iron rod for coil core
Capacitor of 10 μF

Objectives

Understanding the current across an inductor-resistor and the RLC circuits, then calculate the
energy of the oscillation RLC circuit.
 How to process the experimental results

Part 1. Resistance and Inductance of the Coil

Question 1: Measure and calculate the resistance RL of your coil L.
Question 2: Calculate the inductance of your coil with and without the iron core based on the value
of slope obtained by Datastudio software.
Coil inductance without core: Lw/o = mH
Coil inductance with core: Lw = mH

Part 2: Free Oscillations of the RLC circuit

Question 3: Calculate the frequency, fmeasured = 1/T (Hz) based on the period of oscillation
determined by tools of Datastudio software.
1
Question 4: For your circuit parameters, compute the expected value of f prediction = (Hz)
2π LC
and compare it to your measured value. Do you expect your result to be greater, equal, or less than
the measured value (Δf = prediction − fmeasured )?

Part 3: Observe the Energy in the RLC Circuit

Question 5: The circuit is losing energy most rapidly at times when the graph of total energy is
steepest; these times occur at about the same times that the magnetic energy reaches a local
maximum. Briefly explain why.