1. Electrical Circuits

2. Topics Flow of Charge Electric Current Voltage Sources
Electrical Resistance
Ohm’s Law
Direct Current and Alternating Current
Speed and Source of Electrons in a Circuit
Electric Power
Electric Circuits

3. Electric Charges

4. Electric Charges

5. Would this work?

6. Would this work?

7. Batteries and Bulbs
Would this work?

8. A “Current” flowing through a loop

9. Electric Fields in Circuits
Point away from positive terminal, towards negative
Channeled by conductor (wire)
Electrons flow opposite field lines (neg. charge) E
electrons & direction of motion E
Electric field direction E E

10. Batteries produce a voltage
Typical Alkaline cells produce 1.5 Volts
AAA cells
AA cells
D cells
Putting batteries in series, voltages add
Putting batteries in parallel, same voltage
as a single cell, but can draw
more current, lasts longer (more water in reservoir)

11. Electric Charges

12. Electric Charges

13. Relationship between Voltage, Current and Resistance: Ohm’s Law
There is a simple relationship between voltage, current and resistance:
V is in Volts (V)
I is in Amperes, or amps (A)
R is in Ohms ()
V = I R
Ohm’s Law V I R

14. Examples
What is the ratio of the currents that flow in these 2 circuits?
4 V Ohms V Ohms

15. Class Problem - Ohm’s Law (V = I·R)
How much voltage is being supplied to a circuit that contains a 1 Ohm resistance, if the current that flows is 1.5 Amperes?
If a 12 Volt car battery is powering headlights that draw 0.5 Amps of current, what is the total resistance in the circuit?

16. Class Problem
(How much voltage is being supplied to a circuit that contains a 1 Ohm resistance, if the current that flows is 1.5 Amperes?)
Use the relationship between Voltage, Current and Resistance, V = IR.
Total resistance is 1 Ohm
Current is 1.5 Amps
So V = IR = (1.5 Amps)(1 Ohms) = 1.5 Volts

17. Class Problem
If a 12 Volt car battery is powering headlights that draw 0.5 Amps of current, what is the total resistance in the circuit?
Again need V = IR
Know I, V, need R
Rearrange equation: R = V divided by I
= (12 Volts)/(0.5 Amps)
= 24 Ohms

18. How about multiple resistances?
Resistances in series simply add
Voltage across each one is DV = IR
R1=10  R2=20 
V = 3.0 Volts
Total resistance is 10  + 20  = 30 
So current that flows must be I = V/R = 3.0 V / 30  = 0.1 A
What are the Voltages across R1 and R2?

19. Voltage is potential, bulb presents resistance
Battery is like reservoir of elevated water
The higher, the bigger the potential, or voltage
Imagine bulbs as small tubes that let water drain
Resistance is represented by length of tube
shorter: less resistance: more current flows
Voltage
longer: more resistance: less current flows

20. Parallel Resistances are a little trickier....
Rule for resistances in parallel:
1/Rtot = 1/R1 + 1/R2
10 Ohms Ohms Ohms
Can arrive at this by applying Ohm’s Law to find equal current
in each leg. To get twice the current of a single10 , could use 5 .

21. Water Analogy
Voltage A B A B
side view
Voltage
B+C A A B
side view C

22. Power Dissipation Physical model – electrons bumping into things!
Kinetic Energy is turned into thermal energy (heat)
Power = Voltage  Current
P = V I
A device with a voltage drop of 1 Volt that passes a current of 1 Amp uses 1 Watt of power.

23. Multi-bulb circuits
Rank the expected brightness of the bulbs in the circuits shown, e.g. A>B, C=B, etc. WHY?! _ _ + + A B C

24. Answer:
Bulbs B and C have the same brightness, since the same current is flowing through them both.
Bulb A is brighter than B and C are, since there is less total resistance in the single-bulb loop, so
A > B=C.

25. Adding Bulbs
Where should we add bulb C in order to get A to shine more brightly? _ + C A B

26. Answer
The only way to get bulb A to shine more brightly is to increase the current flowing through A.
The only way to increase the current flowing through A is to decrease the total resistance in the circuit loop
Since bulbs in parallel produce more paths for the current to take, the best (and only) choice for C is to put it in parallel with B, as illustrated on next page

27. How to get A to shine more brightly:_ + A B C

28. Phet

29. Exercises
If you double the voltage across a light bulb, while keeping the current the same, by what factor does the power consumption increase?
If you double the current through a resistor, by what factor does the consumption change?

30. Answers
If you double the voltage while keeping the current fixed, the power consumption doubles
P = IV
If you double the current though a resistor, the power used goes up by a factor of 4! This is because both the current and the voltage double
P = I V = I (IR) = I2 R

31. Flashlights “A holder for dead batteries” How does a flashlight work?
Light source?
Power source?
Control device?

32. Incandescent Bulb Tungsten Filament Sealed Bulb Electrical contacts
120 W bulb at 120 V must be conducting 1 Amp (P = VI)
Bulb resistance is then about 120 Ohms (V = IR)

33. What limits bulb’s lifetime?
Heated tungsten filament drives off tungsten atoms
Tradeoff between filament temperature and lifetime
Eventually the filament burns out, and current no longer flows – no more light!
How “efficient” do you think incandescent bulbs are?

34. Efficiency
Ratio between energy doing what you want vs. energy supplied
Efficiency = (energy emitted as visible light)/(total supplied)
For incandescent bulbs, efficiency is at most 10% percent
Where does the rest of the energy go?

35. Decorative Lights
Strings of lights used to decorate contain many bulbs
In some light sets, a single bulb going out can shut off the entire set
How do you think sets like this are wired up?
How might you design a light set that still works, even if a bulb goes out?
Series combo: one goesno light

36. Fault-tolerant light sets
Wire up the bulbs in parallel, then if one goes out it still works

37. Lights in your Car
The car has a battery as part of its electrical system
(as well as a generator, voltage regulator, etc..)
Lights in a car include:
Interior light, turn on when the door opens
Turn signals
Brake lights
Headlights (high and low beam)
The illustrations that follow are by no means the only way to accomplish these tasks!

38. Brake lights
Pedal
Switch
Plus red filter to get desired color

39. Interior car lights Manual Switch Door switch
Switches wired in parallel: either one will do!
(Example of OR logic circuit)

40. Class Problem
The simple series circuit consists of three identical lamps powered by battery. When a wire is connected between points a and b, a) What happens to the brightness of lamp 3? b) Does current in the circuit increase, decrease or remain the same? c) What happens to the brightness of lamps 1 and 2? d) Does the voltage drop across lamps 1 and 2 increase, decrease, or remain the same? e) Is the power dissipated by the circuit increased, decreased, or does it remain the same?

41. Class Problem
a) Lamp 3 is short-circuited. It no longer glows because no current passes through it. b) The current in the circuit increases. Why? Because the circuit resistance is reduced. Whereas charge was made to flow through three lamps before, now it flows through only two lamps. So more energy is now given to each lamp. c) Lamps 1 and 2 glow brighter because of the increased current through them. d) The voltage drop across lamps 1 and 2 is greater. Whereas voltage supplied by the battery was previously divided between three lamps, it is now divided only between two lamps. So more energy is now given to each lamp. e) The power output of the two-lamp circuit is greater because of the greater current. This means more light will be emitted by the two lamps in series than from the three lamps in series. Three lamps connected in parallel, however, put out more light. Lamps are most often connected in parallel.