DE LA SALLE UNIVERSITY DASMARINAS

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY

EXPERIMENT NO. 6
POWER IN AC CIRCUITS

SCORE:

CANIEDO, JOHN CARLO T.

SUBMITTED TO:

DATE PERFORMED:

JANUARY 27, 2015

ENGR. JUANCHO O.
NATIVIDAD

DATE SUBMITTED:

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

I.

DISCUSSIONS AND ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

In this experiment, we are about to determine the importance of power

in ac circuits. This power of a circuit in ac is the rate of flow of energy in a given point
of circuit. According to the basic information in DC circuits power only consumed by
the resistive components. There are several ways to compute for the power in ac
circuits, apparent power PA in an AC circuit is the product of the source voltage and
the line current PA = VS x IT, where V is the applied voltage and I is the current taken
by the circuit. The true power dissipated by the circuit is the product of V and I and
the power factor PF. The power factor is equal to the cosine of the angle between the

voltage and current in the circuit in the circuit, that is, P T = VS x IT x cos . Besides
that, other formulas for true power are P T = IT2 x R where IT is total current in the
circuit in amperes, R is total resistance of the circuit in ohms, and V R is voltage
measure across the total resistance of the circuit.
Electric power constitutes the most common form of electric power distribution;
in this section, the phasor notation will be employed to analyze the power absorbed
by both resistive and complex loads.
Theoretically, we can calculate the V R by ohms law with VR = IT x R. The

current flow in circuit can be determined by the reactant X C = 1/2 f C, IT = VS / XC.

For the phase angle between the applied circuit voltage Vs and the current I T, we can
get it by determine the power factor of an AC circuit. The power factor is P T / PA and

also equal to cos . So, we can also determine the phase angle from it by calculate
cos-1 (PT / PA).
Reference:

1001 Solved Problems in Electrical Engineering by Romeo A. Rojas

Self-Sufficient Guide to ECE Electronics Engineering by Jason M. Ampoloquio,
PECE

II. CONCLUSION
After the experiment, As a conclusion, we can say that the different between

true power and apparent power in AC circuits is about a cosine of phase angle.
Power in an AC circuit may be determined by measuring the applied voltage V and
the current I and the phase angle and substituting the measured values in the

formula PT = VS x IT x cos . However the true power may be measured directly, using
a wattmeter.
I also concluded that For a purely resistive circuit the power factor is 1. When
R=0, cos(f)=0 (energy is traded but not dissipated). Usually the power factor depends
on frequency.
Since Pav corresponds to the power absorbed by the load resistance, it is also
called the real power, measured in units of watts (W). On the other hand, Q takes the
name of reactive power, since it is associated with the load reactance. Table 7.1
shows the general methods of calculating P and Q. The units of Q are volt-amperes
reactive, or VAR. Note that Q represents an exchange of energy between the source
and the reactive part of the load; thus, no net power is gained or lost in the process,
since the average reactive power is zero. In general, it is desirable to minimize the
reactive power in a load.

III. QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS