Question

Consider a circuit with an ideal ac generator with peak voltage of V0 connected to an inductor with

inductance L, a capacitor with capacitance C, and resistor with resistance R connected in series.

what is the voltage drop along the circuit?

Answer 1

As per the question, a series RLC circuit with ideal ac generator is shown below,

This is circuit is actually frequency dependent due to inductor L and capacitor C and therefore there will be a phase difference between voltage and current. The inductor is characterised by its inductance ie XL and capacitor C is by capacitance Xc , where and   , f is the frequency . Here the Ohm's law for ac circuit is defined as

or

Where V0 is the peak voltage, I0 is the peak current and Z is the impedence. The combined effect of resistance R, inductance XL  and  capacitance XC is called impedence Z which is analogus to resistance in dc circuits.

voltage drops across the circuit are voltage drop due to R is VR, voltage drop due to C is Vc and voltage drop due to L is VL . But the total voltage is not the sum of total sum of VR,VC and VL . This is due to the phase change induced by L and C. The voltage drop due to each component is

(current is in phase voltage)

( voltage leads current by 90o)

  ( voltage lags current by 90o)

The total voltage is