RC & RL CIRCUITS

Dr. Nu War
Professor
Faculty of Computer Systems and Technologies
Myanmar Institute of Information Technology
 CONTENTS

• RC and RL circuits’ reaction to switched sources

• The circuits are referred to as first-order circuits
• Three special functions, the unit step, unit impulse, and unit ramp function are also introduced
• Both source free and switched sources
 FIRST-ORDER CIRCUIT

• A circuit that contains only sources, resistors

and an inductor is called an RL circuit.

• A circuit that contains only sources, resistors

and a capacitor is called an RC circuit.

• RL and RC circuits are called first-order circuits because their V-Is are described by first-order
differential equations.
• There are also two ways to excite the circuits:
• initial conditions
• independent sources
 RESPONSE

• Transient response of an RL or RC circuit is

• Behavior when voltage or current source are suddenly applied to or removed from the
circuit due to switching.
• Temporary behavior
• Steady-state response (aka. forced response)
• Response that persists long after transient has decayed
• Natural response of an RL or RC circuit is
• Behavior (i.e., current and voltage) when stored energy in the inductor or capacitor is
released to the resistive part of the network (containing no independent sources).
 NATURAL RESPONSE

• Capacitor voltage cannot change instantaneously

• In steady state, a capacitor behaves like an open
circuit

• Inductor current cannot change instantaneously

• In steady state, an inductor behaves like a short circuit.
 SOURCE FREE RC CIRCUIT

• A source free RC circuit occurs when its dc source is suddenly disconnected.

• The energy stored in the capacitor is released to the resistors.
• Consider a series combination of a resistor and a initially charged capacitor as shown:

• At t=0:
•
•
•
•C
•
NATURAL RESPONSE OF RC

• The result shows that the voltage response of the RC circuit is an

exponential decay of the initial voltage.
• The speed at which the voltage decays can be characterized by how long it
takes the voltage to drop to 1/e of the initial voltage.
• The time constant and is represented by 𝜏.

=
• The voltage thus be expressed as
 TIME CONSTANT

• After five time constants the voltage on the capacitor is less than one percent.
• After five time constants, a capacitor is considered to be either fully discharged or charged
• A circuit with a small time constant has a fast response and vice versa.
 RC CIRCUIT

• With the voltage known, it can be found the current: i 𝑡 = 𝑒

• The power dissipated in the resistor is: P 𝑡 = 𝑒

• The energy absorbed by the resistor is: 𝑊 𝑡 = 𝐶𝑉 (1 − 𝑒 )

 PRACTICE

• In the circuit below, let 𝑣 0 = 15 𝑉. Find 𝑣 , 𝑣 , and 𝑖 for 𝑡 > 0.

 SOURCE FREE RL CIRCUIT

• lets consider the series connection of a resistor and inductor.

• In this case, the value of interest is the current through the inductor.
• Since the current cannot change instantaneously, it can be determined its value as a function of time.

• At t=0:
•
•

The time constant in this case is:

 PRACTICE

• The switch in the circuit below has been closed for a long time. At 𝑡 = 0, the switch is opened. Calculate 𝑖(𝑡) for 𝑡 > 0.
 SINGULARITY FUNCTIONS

• Before studying the response of a circuit to an external voltage, it is needed to cover some important mathematical
functions.
• Singularity functions (also known as switching functions) serve as good approximations to the switching signals
that arise in circuits with switching operations.
• The three most common singularity functions are
• unit step
• unit impulse
• unit ramp
 THE UNIT STEP U(T)

• A step function is one that maintains a constant value before a certain time and
then changes to another constant afterwards.
• The prototypical form is 0 before 𝑡 = 0 and 1 afterwards.
• The graph is
 EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT OF UNIT STEP

• The unit step function has an equivalent circuit to represent when it is used to switch on a source.

• The equivalent circuits for a voltage and current source are shown.
 THE UNIT IMPULSE FUNCTION

• The derivative of the unit step function is the unit impulse function.
• This is expressed as:𝜹(𝒕)
• Voltages of this form can occur during switching operations.
 THE UNIT RAMP FUNCTION

• Integration of the unit step function results in the unit ramp function:𝒓(𝒕)

• Much like the other functions, the onset of the ramp may be adjusted.
 STEP RESPONSE OF RC CIRCUIT

• When a DC source is suddenly applied to a RC circuit, the source can be modeled as a step function.
• The circuit response is known as the step response.
• Let’s consider the circuit shown here.
• It can be found the voltage on the capacitor as a function of time.
STEP RESPONSE OF RC CIRCUIT

• Assume an initial voltage of 𝑉 on the capacitor.

• Applying KCL:
𝑑𝑣 𝑣 𝑉 𝑢(𝑡)
+ =
𝑑𝑡 𝑅𝐶 𝑅𝐶
• For t>0 this becomes: Integrating both sides and introducing initial
conditions finally yields: + =

• Integrating both sides and introducing initial conditions finally yields:

𝑉 ,𝑡 < 0
• 𝑣 𝑡 =
𝑉 + 𝑉 − 𝑉 𝑒 ,𝑡 > 0
 TOTAL RESPONSE

• The complete response, or total response.

𝑉 ,𝑡 < 0
• 𝑣 𝑡 =
𝑉 + 𝑉 − 𝑉 𝑒 ,𝑡 > 0

• Consider the response to be broken into two separate responses:

• The natural response of the capacitor or inductor due to the energy stored in it.
• The second part is the forced response.

• The response is to break it up into the transient response and the steady state response:

Steady transient 𝑉
state 𝑉
 PRACTICE

• The switch has been in position A for a long time. At 𝑡 = 0, the switch moves to B. Find 𝑣(𝑡).
 STEP RESPONSE OF RL CIRCUIT

• The transient and steady state response approach.

• The transient response will be an exponential:
𝑖 = 𝐴𝑒 /
• After a sufficiently long time, the current will
reach the steady state: 𝑖 =

/
• This yields an overall response of: +
• To determine the value of A, that the current cannot change instantaneously
𝑖 𝑡=0 =𝑖 𝑡=0 =𝐼

when t=0, / + + ,

/
The complete response of the circuit is thus: − +
 TOTAL RESPONSE

• : 𝑖 𝑡 = (𝐼 − )𝑒 / +

• Without an initial current, the circuit response is shown here.

 PRACTICE

• Find 𝑖(𝑡) in the circuit for 𝑡 > 0. Assume that the switch has been closed for a
long time.
 An inductor behaves like a short circuit in steady state
SUMMARY A capacitor behaves like an open circuit in steady state

1. Identify the variable of interest

For RL circuits, it is usually the inductor current 𝑖 (𝑡)
For RC circuits, it is usually the capacitor voltage 𝑣 (𝑡)

2. Determine the initial value (at 𝑡 = 𝑡 and 𝑡 = 𝑡 ) of the variable

𝑖 (𝑡) and 𝑣 (𝑡) are continuous variables:
𝑖 (𝑡 ) = 𝑖 (𝑡 ) and 𝑣 (𝑡 ) = 𝑣 (𝑡 )
Assuming that the circuit reached steady state before t0

3. Calculate the final value of the variable (its value as t  ∞)

𝑖 (𝑡) and 𝑣 (𝑡) are continuous variables:
The circuit reached steady state before t  ∞

4. Calculate the time constant for the circuit

𝜏 = for an RL circuit,
R is the Thévenin equivalent resistance “seen” by the inductor.
𝜏 = 𝑅𝐶 for an RC circuit
R is the Thévenin equivalent resistance “seen” by the capacitor.