RLC circuit

Basic concepts

Resonance

An important property of this circuit is its ability to resonate at a specific frequency, the resonance
frequency, f0. Frequencies are measured in units of hertz. In this article, angular frequency, ω0,
is used because it is more mathematically convenient. This is measured in radians per second.
They are related to each other by a simple proportion,

Resonance occurs because energy for this situation is stored in two different ways: in an electric
field as the capacitor is charged and in a magnetic field as current flows through the inductor.
Energy can be transferred from one to the other within the circuit and this can be oscillatory. A
mechanical analogy is a weight suspended on a spring which will oscillate up and down when
released. This is no passing metaphor; a weight on a spring is described by exactly the same second
order differential equation as an RLC circuit and for all the properties of the one system there will
be found an analogous property of the other. The mechanical property answering to the resistor in
the circuit is friction in the spring–weight system. Friction will slowly bring any oscillation to a halt
if there is no external force driving it. Likewise, the resistance in an RLC circuit will "damp" the
oscillation, diminishing it with time if there is no driving AC power source in the circuit.

The resonance frequency is defined as the frequency at which the impedance of the circuit is at a
minimum. Equivalently, it can be defined as the frequency at which the impedance is purely real
(that is, purely resistive). This occurs because the impedances of the inductor and capacitor at
resonance are equal but of opposite sign and cancel out. Circuits where L and C are in parallel
rather than series actually have a maximum impedance rather than a minimum impedance. For
this reason they are often described as antiresonators; it is still usual, however, to name the
frequency at which this occurs as the resonance frequency.

Natural frequency

The resonance frequency is defined in terms of the impedance presented to a driving source. It is
still possible for the circuit to carry on oscillating (for a time) after the driving source has been
removed or it is subjected to a step in voltage (including a step down to zero). This is similar to the
way that a tuning fork will carry on ringing after it has been struck, and the effect is often called
ringing. This effect is the peak natural resonance frequency of the circuit and in general is not
exactly the same as the driven resonance frequency, although the two will usually be quite close to
each other. Various terms are used by different authors to distinguish the two, but resonance
frequency unqualified usually means the driven resonance frequency. The driven frequency may be
called the undamped resonance frequency or undamped natural frequency and the peak frequency
may be called the damped resonance frequency or the damped natural frequency. The reason for
this terminology is that the driven resonance frequency in a series or parallel resonant circuit has
the value.
This is exactly the same as the resonance frequency of a lossless LC circuit – that is, one with no
resistor present. The resonant frequency for a driven RLC circuit is the same as a circuit in which
there is no damping, hence undamped resonant frequency. The resonant frequency peak
amplitude, on the other hand, does depend on the value of the resistor and is described as the
damped resonant frequency. A highly damped circuit will fail to resonate at all, when not driven. A
circuit with a value of resistor that causes it to be just on the edge of ringing is called critically
damped. Either side of critically damped are described as underdamped (ringing happens) and
overdamped (ringing is suppressed).

Circuits with topologies more complex than straightforward series or parallel (some examples
described later in the article) have a driven resonance frequency that deviates from
, and for those the undamped resonance frequency, damped resonance frequency
and driven resonance frequency can all be different.

Damping

Damping is caused by the resistance in the circuit. It determines whether or not the circuit will
resonate naturally (that is, without a driving source). Circuits that will resonate in this way are
described as underdamped and those that will not are overdamped. Damping attenuation (symbol
α) is measured in nepers per second. However, the unitless damping factor (symbol ζ, zeta) is often
a more useful measure, which is related to α by

The special case of ζ = 1 is called critical damping and represents the case of a circuit that is just
on the border of oscillation. It is the minimum damping that can be applied without causing
oscillation.
In this circuit, the three components are all in series with the voltage source. The governing
differential equation can be found by substituting into Kirchhoff's voltage law (KVL) the
constitutive equation for each of the three elements. From the KVL,

where VR, VL and VC are the voltages across R, L, and C, respectively, and V(t) is the time-varying
voltage from the source.

Substituting and into the equation

above yields:
For the case where the source is an unchanging voltage, taking the time derivative and dividing by
L leads to the following second order differential equation:

This can usefully be expressed in a more generally applicable form:

α and ω0 are both in units of angular frequency. α is called the neper frequency, or attenuation,
and is a measure of how fast the transient response of the circuit will die away after the stimulus
has been removed. Neper occurs in the name because the units can also be considered to be nepers
per second, neper being a logarithmic unit of attenuation. ω0 is the angular resonance frequency.

For the case of the series RLC circuit these two parameters are given by:

A useful parameter is the damping factor, ζ, which is defined as the ratio of these two;
although, sometimes ζ is not used, and α is referred to as damping factor instead; hence
requiring careful specification of one's use of that term.

In the case of the series RLC circuit, the damping factor is given by

The value of the damping factor determines the type of transient that the circuit will exhibit.

Transient response
The differential equation has the characteristic equation,

The roots of the equation in s-domain are,

The general solution of the differential equation is an exponential in either root or a linear
superposition of both,
The coefficients A1 and A2 are determined by the boundary conditions of the specific problem
analysed. That is, they are set by the values of the currents and voltages in the circuit at the
onset of the transient and the presumed value they will settle to after infinite time.
The differential equation for the circuit solves in three different ways depending on the value of ζ.
These are overdamped (ζ > 1), underdamped (ζ < 1), and critically damped (ζ = 1).

Overdamped response

The overdamped response (ζ > 1) is

The overdamped response is a decay of the

Underdamped response

The underdamped response (ζ < 1) is

By applying standard trigonometric identities Underdamped and overdamped responses of

The underdamped response is a decaying oscillation at frequency ωd. The oscillation decays at a
rate determined by the attenuation α. The exponential in α describes the envelope of the
oscillation. B1 and B2 (or B3 and the phase shift φ in the second form) are arbitrary constants
determined by boundary conditions. The frequency ωd is given by

This is called the damped resonance frequency or the damped natural frequency. It is the
frequency the circuit will naturally oscillate at if not driven by an external source. The resonance
frequency, ω0, which is the frequency at which the circuit will resonate when driven by an external
oscillation, may often be referred to as the undamped resonance frequency to distinguish it.

Critically damped response

The critically damped response represents the circuit response that decays in the
fastest possible time without going into oscillation. This consideration is important in control
systems where it is required to reach the desired state as quickly as possible without
overshooting.
D 1 and D2 are arbitrary constants determined by boundary conditions.