What is an AC circuit?

Electrical and electronic circuits include many different connecting components to

form a closed and complete circuit. The main passive components employed in any
circuit are Capacitor, Resistor , and Inductor. All three of named passive
components have one feature in common; they limit the electrical current in a
circuit but totally in very various ways.

Electrical current can pass through a circuit in two ways. If it passes in one single
direction only, it is named Direct Current (DC). If the electrical current alternates in
divers directions back and forth, it is named Alternating Current (AC). As they offer
an impedance inside a circuit, passive components in AC circuits act quite
differently compared to those in DC circuits.

Passive components in the circuit consume electrical energy. Therefore, they can
not amplify or increase the power of any electrical signals applied to them. Simply it
is all because they are passive and will always have a gain of less. Passive
components placed in an electrical and electronic circuit can be combined in an
infinite number of designs, as shown below, with the performance of these circuits
based on the interaction between their various electrical properties.

The alternating circuit was made for the first time in the 1980s when Tesla aimed to
solve the numerous incapability of Thomas Edison’s DC generators. He attempted to
present a way of transferring electricity at a high voltage. Then, by employing
transformers to step it up or down for distribution, we would be able to minimize
power loss across long distances, which was the center of Direct Current’s problems
at the time.

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 AC Resistance and Impedance

Impedance measured in Ohms, is the effective resistance to current flow around an AC circuit
containing resistances and reactances.

We have seen in the previous tutorials that in an AC circuit containing sinusoidal waveforms,
voltage and current phasors along with complex numbers can be used to represent a complex
quantity.
We also saw that sinusoidal waveforms and functions that were previously drawn in the time-
domain transform can be converted into the spatial or phasor-domain so that phasor diagrams
can be constructed to find this phasor voltage-current relationship.
Now that we know how to represent a voltage or current as a phasor we can look at this
relationship when applied to basic passive circuit elements such as an AC Resistance when
connected to a single phase AC supply.

AC Resistance with a Sinusoidal Supply

When the switch is closed, an AC voltage, V will be applied to resistor, R. This voltage will cause
a current to flow which in turn will rise and fall as the applied voltage rises and falls sinusoidally.

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 As the load is a resistance, the current and voltage will both reach their maximum or peak
values and fall through zero at exactly the same time, i.e. they rise and fall simultaneously and
are therefore said to be “in-phase “.
Then the electrical current that flows through an AC resistance varies sinusoidally with time and
is represented by the expression, I(t) = Im x sin(ωt + θ), where Im is the maximum amplitude of
the current and θ is its phase angle. In addition we can also say that for any given
current, i flowing through the resistor the maximum or peak voltage across the terminals
of R will be given by Ohm’s Law as:

and the instantaneous value of the current, i will be:

So for a purely resistive circuit the alternating current flowing through the resistor varies in
proportion to the applied voltage across it following the same sinusoidal pattern. As the supply
frequency is common to both the voltage and current, their phasors will also be common
resulting in the current being “in-phase” with the voltage, ( θ = 0 ).

Sinusoidal Waveforms for AC Resistance

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 This “in-phase” effect can also be represented by a phasor diagram. In the complex domain,
resistance is a real number only meaning that there is no “j” or imaginary component. Therefore,
as the voltage and current are both in-phase with each other, there will be no phase difference
( θ = 0 ) between them, so the vectors of each quantity are drawn super-imposed upon one
another along the same reference axis. The transformation from the sinusoidal time-domain into
the phasor-domain is given as.

AC Resistance Example No.1

An electrical heating element which has an AC resistance of 60 Ohms is connected across a
240V AC single phase supply. Calculate the current drawn from the supply and the power
consumed by the heating element. Also draw the corresponding phasor diagram showing the
phase relationship between the current and voltage.

1. The supply current:

2. The Active power consumed by the AC resistance is calculated as:

3. As there is no phase difference in a resistive component, ( θ = 0 ), the corresponding phasor

diagram is given as:

AC Resistance Example No.2

A sinusoidal voltage supply defined as: V(t) = 100 x cos(ωt + 30o) is connected to a pure
resistance of 50 Ohms. Determine its impedance and the peak value of the current flowing
through the circuit. Draw the corresponding phasor diagram.
The sinusoidal voltage across the resistance will be the same as for the supply in a purely
resistive circuit. Converting this voltage from the time-domain expression into the phasor-
domain expression gives us:

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 Applying Ohms Law gives us:

The corresponding phasor diagram will therefore be:

Impedance Summary
In a pure ohmic AC Resistance, the current and voltage are both “in-phase” as there is no
phase difference between them. The current flowing through the resistance is directly
proportional to the voltage across it with this linear relationship in an AC circuit being
called Impedance.
Impedance, which is given the letter Z, in a pure ohmic resistance is a complex number
consisting only of a real part being the actual AC resistance value, ( R ) and a zero imaginary
part, ( j0 ). Because of this Ohm’s Law can be used in circuits containing an AC resistance to
calculate these voltages and currents.
In the next tutorial about AC Inductance we will look at the voltage-current relationship of an
inductor when a steady state sinusoidal AC waveform is applied to it along with its phasor
diagram representation for both pure and non-pure inductance’s.

Direct Current Vs Alternating Current (AC vs DC)

AC and DC differ in many ways from transmission to generation and distribution.

The significant difference between the DC and AC, which is also the basis of their
diverse characteristics, is the direction of the flow of electricity. In DC, electrons flow
continuously in a specific direction or forward, but in the AC system, electrons
exchange their direction of movement in periodic intervals. This alternating current

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 also leads to alternation of the voltage value as it changes along from negative to
positive in line with the current.

References:

Edminister, J. A. Theory and Problems of Electric Circuits. Schaum's Outline Series. New York: McGraw-Hill,
1972.

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 “Electric Power Applications Lecture Notes.”

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. University of Adelaide, 1997.

“Electrical Circuits and Machines Laboratory with LabVIEW.”

June 2000 ed. National Instruments. Part no. 322765A-01.

Shotton, A. C. Worked Examples in Electrotechnology. London: George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd., 1957.

Wildi, T. Electrical Machines, Drives, and Power Systems. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.

Yamaee, Zia A., L. Juan, and J. R. Bala. Electromechanical Energy Devices and Power Systems. New York:
Wiley, 1994.

Sample Quiz:
1. The frequency of an alternating current is

A. The speed with which the alternator runs

B. The number of cycles generated in one minute
C. The number of waves passing through a point in one second

2. The unit of frequency is

A. Cycle
B. Hertz
C. Hertz/second

3. When an alternating current passes through an ohmic resistance the electrical power
converted into heat is
.
A. True power
B. Apparent power
C. Reactive power

4. In an AC circuit ( sine wave ) with R and L in series

A. Voltage across R and L 180o out of face

B. The voltage across R lags the voltage across L by 90o
C. The voltage across R leads the voltage across L by 90o

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 5. Unit of reactive power is

A. VA
B. Watt
C. VAR

Answers;
1. C
2. B
3. A
4. B
5. C

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