INSTITUTO TECNOLOGICO DE CHIHUAHUA

Control 2
DOCENTE: RIVERA REYES MARTHA V.
MARTÍN ALONSO SILVESTRE GARCÍA
PRACTICA 1
RC Circuit
Transient Analysis with Matlab

Considering the RC Circuit (also called RC network) shown in this figure

we can use the Kirchhoff’s current law (KCL) to write the following equation

and we can rearrange into the equation

The solution to the equation above is

where
Vm is the initial voltage across the capacitor
RC is the time constant

This solution represents the voltage across a discharging capacitor.

Now, to obtain the voltage across a charging capacitor, let us consider this figure that
includes a voltage source

Again, using KCL, the equation describing the charging RC circuit is

If the capacitor is not charged initially, that is v0(t) = 0 when t = 0, then the solution
to the equation above is given by

The following examples illustrate the use of Matlab for solving problems
related to RC circuits.

Example 1 – Charging circuit

Assume that for the charging RC circuit above Vs = 10 volts and C = 10 microfarads.
Plot the voltage across the capacitor if R equals 5k ohm, 10k ohms and 20k ohms. This
just means that we are going to explore three time constants.

This code is one simple solution to the problem

% Define the voltage source

Vs = 10;
% Define the capacitor in the circuit
C = 10e-6;
% Define the time lapse that we're going to explore
t = 0 : 0.005 : 0.35;

% Define the resistors in each time constant and

% calculate the voltage across the capacitor
R1 = 5e3;
tau1 = R1*C;
V1 = Vs * ( 1 - exp(-t/tau1) );

R2 = 10e3;
tau2 = R2*C;
V2 = Vs * ( 1 - exp(-t/tau2) );

R3 = 20e3;
tau3 = R3*C;
V3 = Vs * ( 1 - exp(-t/tau3) );

% Plot the responses, all at once

plot(t, V1, 'b-', t, V2, 'ro', t, V3, 'k*')
grid on
title('Transient Analysis - RC circuit')
xlabel('Time (s)')
ylabel('Voltage across capacitor (V)')
legend(['RC_1 = ' num2str(tau1)],...
['RC_2 = ' num2str(tau2)],...
['RC_3 = ' num2str(tau3)], 'location', 'best')

The resulting plot is

From the resulting plot of our transient analysis, we see that if the time constant is
small, it takes a shorter time for the capacitor to charge up (the smaller the time
constant the faster the circuit response). We also can see that when the time constant
is reached by each response, we have obtained more or less the 63% of the total
voltage to be taken (that’s why the RC value is called the time constant).

Example 2 - Charging / discharging RC circuit

In the same charging circuit above, the input voltage is now a rectangular pulse with
an amplitude of 10 volts and a width of 0.5 seconds. If C = 10 microfarads, we’ll plot
the output voltage, v0(t), for a resistance R equal to 5k ohms, and 20k ohms. The plots
should start from 0s and end at 1s.

We are going to develop a function that will return the voltage and corresponding time
of the response. We need to use the two formulas mentioned previously and that’s why
we separate our code in two halves.

The input parameters are the voltage source (vs), the resistor (r) and capacitor (c).

function [v, t] = rectangular_RC(vs, r, c)

tau = r * c;

% First half of the pulse: 0.01 to 0.5 seconds

% Use the correct formula.
t1 = linspace(.01, 0.5, 50);
v1 = vs * (1 - exp(-t1/tau));

% Second half of the pulse: 0.51 to 1 seconds.

% Take into account the max voltage reached.
% Use the appropriate formula.
Vm = v1(end);
t2 = linspace(0.51, 1, 50);
v2 = Vm * exp(-t1/tau);

% Assemble the final vectors to return

t = [t1 t2];
v = [v1 v2];

Now, we are going to call the function from our main code, like this

% Given constants
vs = 10;
c = 10e-6;

% Case 1. R = 5k ohms
r1 = 5e3;
[v1, t1] = rectangular_RC(vs, r1, c);

% Case 2. R = 20k ohms

r2 = 20e3;
[v2, t2] = rectangular_RC(vs, r2, c);

% Plot the responses

plot(t1, v1, 'bo', t2, v2, 'r+')
grid on

% Add labels
title('RC circuit - rectangular input')
xlabel('Time (s)')
ylabel('Voltage (V)')
legend(['R_1 = ' num2str(r1)], ...
['R_2 = ' num2str(r2)])

The resulting plot is

We can see that the first circuit reaches the maximum voltage of the source. The
second circuit started its discharge before reaching the maximum voltage.

Conclusión individual de la practica

Mirando las gráficas obtenidas vemos que siempre son

crecientes.

El número de frecuencias de resonancia es igual al número

de elementos reactivos menos uno.

Las frecuencias de resonancia serie y paralelo aparecen

intercaladas entre sí.
La grafica de resonancia empieza desde cero cuando
podemos ir desde un extremo a otro del dipolo sin pasar por
un capacitor.

En el caso de que no exista un camino donde no haya

capacitor, la susceptancia empieza de cero.