12-4-2014 AC RLC Circuit

     This is a sample of the graphs we obtained through use of the voltage and current sensors hooked up into our RC circuit. In order to obtain RMS values for voltage and current, we simply took the maximum value and divided it by the square root of two. We then divided the RMS voltage by the RMS current, which gave us a value of reactance. 

In lab, we conducted an experiment in which we calculated a theoretical capacitive reactance and then used current and voltage sensors to construct graphs using LoggerPro that would be used to determine RMS voltages and currents. These voltages and currents would be used to acquire another value of capacitive reactance that we would compare to our theoretical value. We did this for two different capacitors and then found that doubling the frequency greatly reduced our percentage error. We attempted a similar process with an inductor, but found that our results we not nearly as accurate as they were with the capacitor. Also, we simply ran out of time to complete the inductor experiment in its entirety.