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    Complex Circuits, Effective Resistance, and Electrical Power: Physics 2

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    Waqar
    - Complex circuits can be simplified by treating series and parallel sections separately and combining them. This allows calculating the effective resistance. - Effective resistance determines the current from the power source and is important for understanding circuit behavior. - A demonstration showed that wiring two lightbulbs (100W and 40W) in series, rather than parallel, caused the lower wattage bulb to glow brighter. This counterintuitive result is explained by the equations for power and effective resistance in series circuits.

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    Complex Circuits, Effective Resistance, and Electrical Power: Physics 2

    Uploaded by

    Waqar
    87 views5 pages
    - Complex circuits can be simplified by treating series and parallel sections separately and combining them. This allows calculating the effective resistance. - Effective resistance determines the current from the power source and is important for understanding circuit behavior. - A demonstration showed that wiring two lightbulbs (100W and 40W) in series, rather than parallel, caused the lower wattage bulb to glow brighter. This counterintuitive result is explained by the equations for power and effective resistance in series circuits.

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    Complex Circuits

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    - Complex circuits can be simplified by treating series and parallel sections separately and combining them. This allows calculating the effective resistance. - Effective resistance determines the current from the power source and is important for understanding circuit behavior. - A demonstration showed that wiring two lightbulbs (100W and 40W) in series, rather than parallel, caused the lower wattage bulb to glow brighter. This counterintuitive result is explained by the equations for power and effective resistance in series circuits.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    87 views5 pages

    Complex Circuits, Effective Resistance, and Electrical Power: Physics 2

    Uploaded by

    Waqar
    - Complex circuits can be simplified by treating series and parallel sections separately and combining them. This allows calculating the effective resistance. - Effective resistance determines the current from the power source and is important for understanding circuit behavior. - A demonstration showed that wiring two lightbulbs (100W and 40W) in series, rather than parallel, caused the lower wattage bulb to glow brighter. This counterintuitive result is explained by the equations for power and effective resistance in series circuits.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    Complex Circuits, Effective Resistance, and Electrical Power: Physics 2

    This lesson is to teach how to add resistors in series and parallel in order to determine an
    effective resistance. Why this resistance is important is then discussed. Finally, a demonstration
    was shown to show about power in series vs. parallel circuits.

    - Youve learned Ohms Law: V = IR, now what do you do when you have
    more than 1 resistor in a circuit?
    - Youve also learned that resistors in series add as Rtot = R1+R2+
    - In addition resistors in parallel add as 1/Rtot = 1/R1+1/R2+
    - But what do you do if you have a complex circuit with many different
    groups of resistors in both series and parallel?
    - You want to find the effective resistance
    o Because that will tell you the current coming out of the battery
    - How do you do this?
    o Start with a small simple chunk that you know how to work with
    thats either all series or all parallel.
    o Then keep redrawing circuit at each step as it simplifies.
    o This is easy
    o Do following examples: (all values in examples are in Ohms)
    Practice Problem:

    - Find the effective Resistance of the following circuit. Then find


    what the current is coming out of the battery.
    Electical Power: Series vs. Parallel

    - Show demo of two lightbulbs: one 100 W and other 40 W. At first


    have them wired in parallel. This is how the students are used to
    seeing them wired in their house. They know that the 100W bulb
    is brighter than the 40 W bulb.
    - Now tell them that youre going to wire them in series. Ask them
    what they think is going to happen. Theyll usually say that the
    100 will still be brighter.
    - Turn them on: the 40W bulb is ridiculously brighter than the
    100W bulb.
    - Note: works best with clear bulbs, otherwise you cant see the
    100W bulb light up at all.
    - Ask them why that happened? Theyll say they have no idea
    - Tell them they already have all they need to know to figure it out
    except for a couple equations
    - Electrical Power in a circuits is given by P = IV, or in the case of
    resistors such as lightbulbs, P = I2R.
    - Now, they can figure out what happened using the Power
    equations and the effective resistance that they just learned.

    Here are what the two circuits look like:


    Parallel Solution:

    Known: P = IV P = I2R V = IR
    100W bulb: 40W bulb:
    P100 = I100V100 P40 = I40V40
    I100 = 100W/120V I40 = 40W/120V
    I100 = .833 A I40 = .33 A
    V100 = I100R100 V40 = I40R40
    R100 = V100/I100 R40 = V40/I40
    R100 = 120V/.833A R40 = 120V/.33A
    R100 = 144 R40 = 360

    Now, find Reff : 1/144 + 1/360 = 1/Reff


    Reff = 102.9

    which means that I coming out of the battery is


    I = V/Reff = 120V/102.9 I = 1.16 A

    Notice that current doesnt split evenly between bulbs.


    Now Series Solution:

    Again, Known: P = IV P = I2R V = IR


    Now, we also know the resistance in each bulb.

    So first find the Reff = R100 + R40


    Reff = 144 + 360 = 504

    Therefore, you can find the current going through the circuit:
    V = IR
    I = V/R
    Itot = 120V/504
    Itot = .24 A

    Now, find the power in each light bulb:

    P40 = I2R40
    P40 = .242*360 = 20.7W

    P100 = I2R100
    P100 = .242*144 = 8.3W

    WOW, the power in the 100W bulb is much less than the 40W bulb,
    thats why its not as bright!

    Thats pretty cool, huh, that you were able to solve this whole
    problem knowing what you know, which you didnt think was much
    at first, but is actually very powerful!

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