University of Tripoli

Faculty of engineering
Electrical and electronic engineering department

EE201 Electrical laboratory

Report of experiment #3
THEVENIN'S THEOREM AND MAXIMUM POWER TRANSFER

Instructor: Eng. ‫نورالدين ابوظهير‬

Name: Moayed Mostafa Ben nour ID number: 2180205706

Group: A
1.1 Objectives:

.To prove the thevenin's theorem theoretically in a particular circuit )1.1

.To prove the thevenin's theorem experimentally in the laboratory )1.2
To confirm the maximum power transfer theorem, and study how to use this )1.3
.theorem

1.2 Introduction:
Thevenin's theorem is an analytical method used to change a complex circuit
into a simple equivalent circuit consisting of a single resistance (Rth) in series
with a DC power supply (Eth) ,if replacement is done properly ,the voltage
across ,and the current through the resistor RL will be the same for each
network, the value of RL can be changed to any value and the voltage,
current and power to the load resistor is the same for each circuit design ,then
the current and voltage across RL can be measured directly in the simple
circuit without reanalyzing the complex circuit.
To change the circuit from complex circuit to simple circuit, first RL should be
removed from the circuit, and marking the remaining two terminals of the
network, know to calculate RTh setting all the sources to zero (it can be done
by replacing all voltage sources with short circuit and all current sources with
an open circuit), and then finding the total resistance between the two
terminals
To find Eth returning all sources to their original position and finding the open
circuit voltage between the marked terminals.
The maximum power principle states that to obtain maximum power from the
network, the value of load resistance should be the same as the value of
thevenin's resistance RL = RTh
The maximum power delivered to the load can be determined by first, finding
the current:

IL = ETh / (RTh +RL)

= Eth / (RTh +RL)
= Eth / (2RL).

Then substitute into the power equation:

PL = IL² RL
= (Eth / (2RTh)) ² *(RTh)
= (ETh² *RTh) / (4RTh²)
= Eth ² / (4RTh).
1.3 Equipment:

 Universal panel
 Variable DC power
 digital multimeter
 Resistor 100 Ω /resistor 1000 Ω /resistor 1000 Ω /resistor 10KΩ
 different optional values of resistors

1.4 Procedure:

The experiment has three parts:

First: theoretically work
Second: experimentally work
Third: maximum power transfer

4.1) Part 1: theoretically work:

4.1.1) first calculates the current flows and the voltage across the load
resistance, using ether node or mesh analysis.

4.1.2) second find the thevenin's equivalent circuit of the network, then
remove the load resistance and calculate the voltage between the
terminals A and B then calculate the total resistance between the two
terminals.

Figure 1
4.2) Part 2: experimentally work:

4.2.1) combine the circuit as shown in figure 1

4.2.2) set the DC power supply at 12 volt
4.2.3) replace the load resistance with an open circuit and measure the
voltage across the two terminals A and B (V OC ) then contrast this
value with the open circuit voltage that was calculated theoretically in
part 1
4.2.4) now replace the load resistance with a short circuit and measure
the current flows across the two terminals A and B
4.2.5) Turn off the DC power supply and replace it with a short circuit,
then replace the load resistance with an open circuit and measure the
total resistance between the two terminals A and B (RTh)
4.2.6) Recombine the circuit in figure 1 with RL and measure the current
and voltage through it
4.2.7) Take off the previous circuit and construct the thevenin's
equivalent circuit,
Connect in series the new value of the DC power supply (ETh) with
thevenin's resistance and load resistance (as shown in figure 2)

4.3) Part 3: maximum power transfer:

4.3.1) The principle of the maximum power transfer verified when the
value of load resistance is exactly equals the thevenin's resistance
value, for this reason the load resistance must be replaced with a
resistance that have the exactly same value of thevenin's resistance
4.3.2) to prove the maximum power transfer theorem replaces the load
resistance with another resistor with higher or lower resistance than the
load resistance
4.3.3) now repeat step 2 many times with a different values of
resistance for having a result with more accuracy
4.3.4) then measure the current and voltage across them and calculate
the power dissipated in each of resistors

5) Results:

5.1) Part 1: theoretically work:

5.1.1) by using mesh analysis it can be seen results is:

IL = 0.594 mA VL = 5.94 v

5.1.2) by analyzing thevenin's equivalent circuit it can be seen that the

results is:
VOC = 6 v RTh = 0.6 KΩ

5.2) Part 2: experimentally work:

5.2.1) by measuring the voltage across the two terminals A and B it can
be seen that the result is VOC = 6 v
5.2.2) by measuring the current flows in the short circuit it can be seen
that the result is ISC = 9.76 mA
5.2.3) For the data that measured in step 1 and 2, the thevenin's
resistance (RTh) can calculated by dividing VOC by ISC, the result of
this operation is:
RTh = 0.614 KΩ
5.2.4) by turning off the DC power supply and measuring the total
resistance (RTh) between the two terminals A and B it can be seen that
the result is
RTh = 0.6 KΩ
5.2.5) after re combined the circuit as shown in figure 1, and measuring
the load current and voltage through it, the results is:
IL = 0.56 mA VL = 5.67 v
5.2.6) after combining the thevenin's equivalent circuit as shown in
figure 2, the values of VOC, RTh, IL and VL can be measured, and the
previously mentioned values was already calculated in the theoretically
exercises, (as showing in the next table):

Measured Calculated
VOC 6v 6v

RTh 0.6 ohm 0.6 ohm

IL 0.56 mA 0.566 mA

VL 5.66 v 5.6 v

(NOTE: unfortunately that there is no resistor with a value of 0.6k ohm

in the laboratory, but we can replace this resistance with an equivalent
set of resistors, that set of resistors can be a resistor with value of a
0.1K Ohm connected in series with a two equal resistances ( 1K Ohm )
that connected in parallel, as shown in figure 3)
5.3) Part 3: maximum power transfer:

5.3.1) from the figure 1 above, the value of RL that should verify the
principle of maximum power transfer is 0.6 K Ohm and the maximum
power dissipated in RL
Is:
Pmax = Eth ² / (4RTh).
= 6² v * (4* 0.6 mA)
= 15 mW.

5.3.2) after varying RL and measuring the load current and voltage and
after calculating the power dissipated in RL it can be seen that the
results is:

RL (K Ohm) IL Measured VL PL= IL * VL

(mA) Measured Calculated
(volt)
0.6 4.92 3 14.76

0.01 9.58 0.09 0.8622

1 3.68 3.77 13.873

0.1 8.29 0.86 7.129

10 0.57 5.67 3.2319

2.2 2.09 4.74 9.9066

0.33 6.27 2.13 13.3551

The power dissipated in load resistance

16

14

12

10

0
0.01 0.1 0.33 0.6 1 2.2 10
1.6 Discussion:

From the results in part 1 and 2, it can be seen that the calculated
values of current and voltage are very close to the measured values,
which means that the measured and calculated values of current and
voltage have a small error percentage.
In the other hand the values of VOC and RTh are exactly equal in the
calculated and measured data, that's mean the error percentage equals
zero.

1.7 Conclusion:

The Thevenin's theorem is one of the most interested and useful

theorems, in general the theorem can be used to do the following:

7.1) Analyze networks with sources that are not in series or parallel
7.2) Reduce the number of components required to establish the same
characteristics at the output terminals
7.3) investigate the effect of changing a particular component on the
behavior of the network without having to analyze the entire network
after each change

1.8 Comment:

As we notice from the results of the experiment there are some

mistakes in the measurement, the causes of this mistakes are usually
the weather conditions such as high humidity and temperature, or the
problem can be a damaged component.

1.9 Reference:
Robert L. Boylestad thirteenth edition
Wikipedia .