Lesson 28: Ch.
30 (6) – RL Circuits
1 Charging RL Circuits 2
Put a resistor R, inductor L and EMF E
in a circuit with a switch that either has Now move the switch so that the battery the diagram the circuit is either charging
the EMF in or out of the only loop. Turn is not in the loop. The inductor creates or discharging (making or destroying the
the switch to bring the EMF in:
R turning off instantly:
E L
This is a single loop circuit with E,
R and L in series. When turned on, the
increasing current will create an increas-
ing B in the inductor. We can write Kir-
choff’s loop rule:
di
−iR − L dt +E =0
Note the similarity to the RC circuits
we worked with earlier. The results are
also similar.
i = (E/R)(1 − e−t/τ ) where τ = L/R.
The back-EMF makes the circuit not
turn on instantly. This equation is really
similar to the charging RC circuit in that
we have an “inverse exponential” behav-
ior that starts i at zero and increases it
to its operating value in time.
Discharging RL Cir- law. Only when dt di
is not zero do we see
a back-EMF.
cuits So, in an RL circuit as portrayed in
a back-EMF to prevent the circuit from B field in the inductor).
R
E L
Kirchoff’s loop rule here is:
di
−iR − L dt =0
and once again, we did the math in
the RC circuits section. We find that the
current does not instantly turn off but in- If the circuit is charging the inductor
stead exponentially “decays” to zero over (i increasing) the current as a function of
some time: time is given by i = (E/R)(1 − e−t/τ ) and
looks like the top plot.
i = (E/R)(e−t/τ ) where τ = L/R.
If the circuit is discharging (i going to
0) the current as a function of time is give
3 Using RL Circuits as an exponential decay i = (E/R)e−t/τ
and looks like the bottom.
In a steady state circuit (on OR off) the The circuit has many components and
inductor acts just like a piece of low re- each one has its own power and voltage.
sistance wire – it is, afterall, just a coil. Remember that knowing the current lets
In the steady state there is no back-EMF you figure out the rest of the circuit.
and the term disappears out of Ohm’s
1
 Exercise 1: An RL circuit consists Exercise 2: An 8.0-mH inductor Exercise 3: What is the inductance
of a 20 ohm resistor and a 10 mH induc- and a 2.0 Ω resistor are wired in se- of a series RL circuit in which R = 1000 Ω
tor connected in series to a 10 V battery ries to a 20-V ideal battery. A switch if the current increases from zero to one-
through a switch. in the circuit is closed at time t = 0, third of its final value in 30µs?
at which time the current is zero. Af-
ter 6 ms, calculate the (a) current in
(a) Immediately after a switch is closed the inductor (b) current in the resistor
to complete the circuit, what is the (c) potential drop across the battery (d)
current through the battery? potential drop across the resistor (e) po-
tential drop across the inductor (f) power
being provided by the battery (g) power
being used by the resistor (h) power being
used by the inductor.
(b) What is the battery current a “long 2.0 Ω
time” after the switch is closed?

20 V 8.0 mH

(c) How long does it take (after the

switch is closed) for the current to
reach 63% of its steady-state value? S