Applications of ODEs: Series Circuits

RL CIRCUIT
 The RL circuit shown above has a resistor and an inductor connected
in series. A constant voltage V is applied when the switch is closed.
The (variable) voltage across the resistor is given by:

The (variable) voltage across the inductor is given by:

 Kirchhoff's voltage law says that the directed sum of the voltages
around a circuit must be zero. This results in the following differential
equation:
Solving the DE for a Series RL Circuit

The solution of the differential equation

Example 1:
An RL circuit has an emf of 5 V, a resistance of 50 , an inductance of
1 H, and no initial current.

Find the current in the circuit at any time t. Distinguish between the
transient and steady-state current.
Example 2:
A series RL circuit with R = 50 and L = 10 H has a constant voltage V
= 100 V applied at t = 0 by the closing of a switch.

Find
(a) the equation for i
(b) the current at t = 0.5 s
(c) the expressions for VR and VL
(d) the time at which VR = VL
RC CIRCUIT
 In this section we see how to solve the differential equation arising
from a circuit consisting of a resistor and a capacitor.

In an RC circuit, the capacitor stores energy between a pair of plates.

When voltage is applied to the capacitor, the charge builds up in the
capacitor and the current drops off to zero.
CASE 1: CONSTANT VOLTAGE
The voltage across the resistor and capacitor are as follows:

And
 Kirchhoff's voltage law says the total voltages must be zero. So applying
this law to a series RC circuit results in the equation:

One way to solve this equation is to turn it into a differential equation, by

differentiating throughout with respect to t:

Solving the equation gives us:

 Applying our expressions from above, we have the following expressions
for the voltage across the resistor and the capacitor:

Important note: We are assuming that the circuit has a constant voltage
source, V. This equation does not apply if the voltage source is variable.
CASE 2: Variable Voltage and 2-mesh Circuits
We need to solve variable voltage cases in q, rather than in i, since we
have an integral to deal with if we use i.
So we will make the substitutions:

and
 and so the equation in i involving an integral:

becomes the differential equation in q:

Example 1:
A series RC circuit with R = 5 W and C = 0.02 F is connected with a
battery of E = 100 V. At t = 0, the voltage across the capacitor is zero.

(a) Obtain the subsequent voltage across the capacitor.

(b) As t , find the charge in the capacitor.

Example 2:
Find the charge and the current for t > 0 in a series RC circuit where R
= 10 W, C = 4 10-3 F and E = 85 cos 150t V.

Assume that when the switch is closed at t = 0, the charge on the

capacitor is -0.05 C.