Series RLC Resonance
Add resistor, inductor and capacitor voltage phasors to see reactive cancellation, current phase and real power.
Free theory articleAdd resistor, inductor and capacitor voltage phasors to see reactive cancellation, current phase and real power.
Concept & interpretation
Consider an RLC circuit driven by a 1 V RMS sinusoidal source with parameters: Resistance R = 2 Ω, Inductance L = 1 H, Capacitance C = 4 F, and Angular frequency ω = 1 rad/s. We calculate the steady-state response as follows:
Experiment
Open the Series RLC Resonance module to observe these principles in action:
- Set Resistance R to 1, Inductance L to 1, and Capacitance C to 1.
- Set the Angular frequency omega to 1. Observe that the reactance is 0 and the current is 1 A (dissipative resonance), with 0 degrees phase difference.
- Change Angular frequency omega to 1/2. The circuit becomes capacitive (current leads voltage), and the reactance drops to -1.5 Ω. The phase shifts to about 56.31 degrees.
- Change Resistance R to 0 and Angular frequency omega back to 1. Notice that the status changes to “No finite resonant phasor” and values become unavailable because there is no resistance to dissipate energy at resonance.