AC EXERCISE

1. A light bulb is rated at 200W for a 220V supply. What is:

a. the resistance of the bulb
b. the peak voltage of the source and
c. the rms current through the bulb?
2. A resistor of 200 Ω and a capacitor of 20 μF are connected in series to a 220V, 50Hz ac source.
a. Calculate the current in the circuit
b. Calculate rms voltage across resistor and capacitor.
3. Answer the following question:
a. For circuits used for transportation electric power, a low power factor implies large power loss in
transmission.
b. Power factor can often be improved by the use of a capacitor of appropriate capacitance in the circuit.
4. A sinusoidal voltage having peak value 283V and frequency 50Hz is applied to a series LCR circuit which has R=
3 Ω , L=25.48mH, and C=796 μF . Determine:
a. The impedance of the circuit,
b. The phase difference between the voltage across the source and the current,
c. The power dissipated in the circuit and
d. The power factor.
5. Show that in the free oscillations of an LC circuit, the sum of energies stored in the capacitor and the inductor is
constant in time.
6. Explain the meaning of the term ‘reactance ‘. Derive the expression for the reactance of the inductor.
7. Show that the average power transferred to an a.c. circuit is, in general, given as,
P=V rms I rms R /Z , where R is the resistance in the circuit and Z is the impedance.
8. A bulb and a capacitor are connected to an ac source of variable frequency. How will the brightness of the bulb
change on increasing the frequency of the ac source? Give reasons.
9. When an inductor L and a resistor R are connected in series are connected across a 12 V, 50 Hz supply, a current
of 0.5A flows in the circuit. The current differs in phase from applied voltage by π /3 radian. Calculate the value of
R.
10. An alternating voltage of frequency f is applied across series LCR circuit. Let f r be the resonance frequency for the
circuit. Will the current in the current lag, lead or remain in phase with the applied voltage when (i) f >f r (ii)
f <f r ? Explain your answer in each case.
11. A resistor of 200 Ω and a capacitor of 15 μF are connected in series to a 220V, 50Hz ac source. (a) Calculate the
current in the circuit. (b) Calculate the voltage (rms) across the resistor and the capacitor. Is the algebraic sum of
these voltages more than the source voltage? If yes, resolve the paradox.
12. Using phasor diagram, derive the expression for the impedance of a series LCR-circuit.
13. A circuit containing an 80mH inductor and a 250 μF capacitor in series is connected to a 240V, 100rad/s supply.
The resistance of the circuit is negligible.
a. Obtain rms value of current.
b. What is the total average power consumed by the circuit?
14. Capacitors block d.c. why?
15. What are eddy currents? How are these produced? In what sense are eddy currents considered undesirable in a
transformer and how are these reduced in such a device?
16. Explain the term ‘capacitive reactance’. Show graphically the variation of capacitive reactance with frequency of
the applied alternating voltage.
An ac voltage E=E o sin ωt is applied across a pure capacitor of capacitance C. show mathematically that the
current flowing through it leads the applied voltage by a phase angle of π /2.
17. Explain the term ‘inductive reactance’. Show graphically the variation of inductance reactance with frequency of
the applied alternating voltage.
An ac voltage E=E o sin ωt is applied across a pure inductor of inductance L. Show mathematically that the
current flowing through it lags the applied voltage by a phase angle of π /2.
18. Calculate the current drawn by the primary of a transformer, which steps down 200V to 20V to operate a device of
resistance 20 Ω . Assume the efficiency of the transformer to be 80%.
19. Explain with the help of a labeled diagram, the underlying principle and working of a step-up transformer. Why
cannot such a device be used to step-up d.c. voltage?
20. An inductor 200mH, capacitor 500 μF , resistor 10 Ω are connected in series with a 100V, variable frequency a.c.
source. Calculate the
a. Frequency at which the power factor of the circuit is unity.
b. Current amplitude at this frequency.
c. Q-factor.
21. Prove that an ideal capacitor does not dissipate power in an ac circuit.
22. Derive an expression for the impedance of an a.c. circuit consisting of an inductor and a resistor.
23. The instantaneous current and voltage of an a.c. circuit are given by
i=10 sin 300 t A , and v=50 sin(314 t + π /2)V.
What is the power dissipation in the circuit?
24. (a) Derive an expression for the average power consumed in a series LCR circuit connected to ac source in which
the phase difference between the voltage and the current in the circuit is ϕ .
(b) Define the quality factor in an ac circuit. Why should the quality factor have high value in receiving circuits?
Name three factors on which it depends.
25. For an ideal inductor, connected across a sinusoidal a.c. voltage source, state which one of the following quantity is
zero: (a) Instantaneous power (b) average power over a cycle for the ac voltage source.
26. The current in the LCR circuit shown in the figure is observed to lead the voltage in phase. Without making any other
change in the circuit, a capacitor of capacitance C o is joined to the capacitor C. This results in making the current, in the
‘modified’ circuit, flow in phase with the applied voltage. Draw a diagram of the modified circuit and obtain an
expression for C o in terms of ω , L,C.
27. A 200mH inductor and a 5 μF capacitor are connected, one by one, across a sinusoidal ac voltage source V =¿
voltage. Obtain the expression for the current in each case.
28. Figure a,b,c shows three ac circuits in which equal currents are flowing. If the frequency of emf be increased, how will
the current be affected in these circuits? Give reasons for your answer.

29. Three students X,Y,Z performed an experiment for studying the variation of alternating currents with angular frequency
in a series LCR-circuit and obtained the graphs shown below. They all used a.c. sources of the same rms value and
inductances of the same value.
What can we (qualitatively) conclude about the
a. Capacitive values
b. Resistance

used by them? In which case will the quality factor be maximum?

What can we conclude about nature of the impedance of the setup at the frequency ω o?

30. A virtual current of 4A flows in a coil when it is connected in a circuit having ac of frequency 50Hz. Calculate
the capacitance of the capacitor, if the current is in phase with the voltage?

Answer Key Alternating Current

1 2 4 9
a) 242Ω a) 0.755A a) 5 9Ω
b) 311V b) 160.3V −1 −4
b) tan ( ¿) ¿
c) 0.90 3
c) 800W
d) cos 53.1o
11 13 18 20
a) 0.755A a) 7.5A 0.125A a) 100 rad /s
b) 220V b) 0 b) 10A
c) 2
23
0