MEASUREMENT OF ELECTRICAL QUANTITIES

 Electrical voltage and current are two important quantities in an electrical network.
 Voltage is measured by voltmeter and current is measured by an ammeter

Permanent magnet moving coil (PMMC) meter

 The magnitude of the force on the conductor depends on the magnitude of the current which it carries
 The deflection of the indicator is proportional to the current through the meter.

The Galvanometer

 The galvanometer is a moving coil instrument and the pointer stays in the middle of the scale to indicate
zero current.
 It can deflect in both directions to show the negative and positive values.
 It is commonly used in bridge measurements where zeroing (balancing – null) of the display is important for
a very accurate measurement of the variable.

Measurement of Resistance

Bridge method (Wheatstone bridge)

When the galvanometer gives null deflection it can be shown that

 If three resistors are known, then the fourth one can be found to the same accuracy.
 This method is more accurate but it is time consuming to get the null deflection.
 One of the known resistor should be a variable resistor, then only it can be adjusted to get the null
deflection.
 Meter sensitivity depends on the values of the resistors, so for a better sensitivity all four resistors need to
be in the same order of magnitude.

 This bridge method can be extended to measure capacitors and inductors with ac voltage source.

 = Where Z is the impedance of the capacitor or inductor.

Using ammeter and voltmeter

 Ammeters require breaking the current loop to place it into the circuit
 Voltmeter connection is connected without disturbing the circuit layout.
 The electrical resistance of a circuit component is measured using an ohmmeter
 It applies a voltage across and determines the current passing through the component

What is the problem if Galvanometer is used directly as an Ammeter

Exercise: A Galvanometer with an internal resistance 60  is used to measure the current through a 10  resistor in
series with a 3 V battery that has an internal resistance of 0.5 . What is the percent error caused by the nonzero
resistance of the meter?
Is this a reasonable error?
How could we reduce this error? need reduce the ammeter resistance and how?

Galvanometer based Ammeter with Shunt resistance

What shunt resistance is required for an ammeter to have a resistance of 10 m, if the galvanometer resistance is
60  ?

An Ammeter with an internal resistance of 10 m is used to measure the current through a 10  resistor in series
with a 3 V battery that has an internal resistance of 0.5 . What is the percent error caused by the nonzero
resistance of the ammeter

How to calculate the shunt resistor for different full scale deflections

The current capacity of the meter can be expended by adding a resistor in parallel with the meter coil

Voltage developed across the meter is

VMC- Voltage across moving coil meter

IFSD- Full scale deflection current
RMC – Moving coil meter resistance
RSH – Shunt resistance

The meter resistance RM seen between the input terminals is

Example:

Moving coil meter resistance is 1000. Calculate the shunt resistance to give the multiplying factor of 50.

Multi-Range Ammeters

The parallel resistance (shunt) can be changed to suit different full-scale current requirements as indicated in the
previous example.

Example:
Galvanometer based Voltmeter

If the Galvanometer (including its internal resistance) connected in parallel to two terminals of a circuit then the
Galvanometer can be used to measure voltage.

A Basic DC Voltmeter

The moving coil can be used as a voltmeter by adding a series resistance RS as illustrated below

The input voltage is divided between the coil resistance RMC and RS.

Current passing through both resistors is IMC which is limited by the full-scale deflection current IFSD of the coil.

The full-scale input voltage

Effect of the internal resistance of Voltmeter

Example: A galvanometer with internal resistance of 60  is used to measure the voltage drop across a 10 k
resistor in series with a 6 V battery and a 5 k resistor. What is the percent error caused by the nonzero resistance
of the galvanometer?
To reduce the percent error, the device being used as a voltmeter must have a very large resistance, so a voltmeter
can be made from Galvanometer in series with a large resistance.

 Now resistors are connected in series with the Galvanometer and the internal resistance of the voltmeter is
now 100 k.
 Now this meter is used to measure the voltage drop across a 10 k resistor in series with a 6 V battery and a
5 k resistor.
 What is the percent error caused by the nonzero resistance of the voltmeter?

100 k and 10 k resistors in parallel are equivalent to an 9090  resistor.

The total equivalent resistance is 14090 , so 4.26x10-3 A of current flows from the battery.

The voltage drop from a to b is then measured to be 6-(4.26x10-3)(5000)=3.9 V.

4 - 3.9
% Error = 100 = 2.5%
4
Multi range volt meter

The series resistance can be changed to suit different full-scale voltage requirements

Example
Example

Galvanometer based Ohmmeter

Analog ohmmeter can be designed simply by adding a battery and a variable resistor in series with the moving coil
instrument as shown below,

 The unknown resistance is connected to the terminals of the device to complete the electrical circuit
 The variable resistance is adjusted until the full-scale deflection current passes through the coil. This is
marked as the “0” resistance.
 When the leads are separated from each other, no current flows indicating an open-circuit which means
infinite resistance
 Multi-range ohmmeters can be obtained by combining the circuits of a series ohmmeter and a multi-range
ammeter.

Multimeter
Example

Example
AC VOLTMETERS

When measuring the value of an alternating current signal, we are measuring the root mean square (RMS) value.

The Full-Wave Rectifier

VAV is the DC component of the voltage and it is the value read by the moving coil instruments.

The true value is the RMS value. The voltage reading will contain reading error (unless it is corrected) as

The ratio of the true value to the measured value is called the form factor or safe factor (SF). For sinusoidal signals
the form factor is SF = (VRMS/VAV).

In AC voltmeters, the sinusoidal signals reading is corrected by a scale factor = safe factor (SF) = 1.11. This can be
done either at the calculation of the series resistance or setting the divisions of the scale. Eventually, the error is
eliminated as:

Clamp-On Meters

Clamp-on meters are used for measuring AC circuit currents in a non-invasive manner which avoids having to break
the circuit being measured.
  The clamp-on jaws of the instrument act as a transformer core and the current-carrying conductor acts as a
primary winding.
 Current induced in the secondary winding is rectified and applied to a moving-coil meter.

THE DIGITAL VOLTMETER (DVM)

The DVM has several advantages over the analog type voltmeters as:

 Input range: from + or - 1.000 000 V to + or -11,000.000 V with automatic range selection.
 Absolute accuracy: as high as + or - 0.005% of the reading.
 Stability
 Resolution: 1 part in 106(1 micro Volt can be read in 1 V range).
 Input impedance: Ri is 10 M;
 Output signals: measured voltage is available as a BCD (binary coded decimal) code and can be send to
computers or printers.

Utilization of Electrical Energy

Electrical Power in Resistive Loads

 The rate of energy output or transfer is called the power.

 Power is defined as P=VI where V and I are the instantaneous values of the voltage and current. For constant
DC, power is simply the product of the voltage and current.
 The average power in one cycle of AC voltage and current applied to the load is

Where Ieff is the RMS (root mean square) value of the current and Veff is the RMS value of the voltage.

Current, Voltage, and Power Transfer for an Inductive Load

 Consider the case where the load is a pure inductance for which z = jωL = ωL ∠90o

= cos
o
i = = cos − 90 = sin

= ∙ = cos sin
= sin 2 average power = 0
  Half the time the power is positive, showing that the energy is delivered to the inductance, where it is stored
in the magnetic field.
 For the other half of the time, power is negative, showing that the inductance return energy to the source.

Current, Voltage, and Power Transfer for an Capacitive Load

 Consider the case where the load is a pure capacitance for which Z=1/jωC={1/ωC}∠-90o

= cos
o
i = = cos 90 = − sin

= ∙ =− cos sin
=− sin 2 average power = 0

Power Calculation for a General Load

 Now, let us consider the voltage, current, and power for a general RLC load, for which the phase θ can be
any value from -90o to +90o

= cos
i = cos −

Notice that, the term involving cos(2ωt) and sin(2ωt) have average values of zero. Thus the average power is

The term cos(θ) is called the power factor.

  Sometimes θ is called the power angle.
 It is common to state that the current leads (capacitive load) or lags (inductive load) the voltage.
 A typical power factor would be stated to be 90% lagging which means that cos(θ)=0.9 and the current lags
the voltage.

Reactive Power

Apparent Power

 If we say that we have a 5 kW load, this means that P = 5 kW.

 If we have 5kVA load, VrmsIrms = 5kVA
 If we say that a load absorbs 5 kVAR then Q = 5 kVAR
Power Triangle

Example

What is the power factor of this circuit? Is it leading or lagging? Find the apparent power as well as the average
power delivered by the source.

Total current is leading to total voltage.

Capacitive load  leading power factor

The source delivers an apparent power of 19.43 VA, however only 11.72 W (or 60.35%) of the apparent power is
dissipated as heat.

Example 2

A series of RL circuit is connected to the household AC line. If the voltage across the inductance is 60V (rms) and the
average power dissipated by the circuit is 25 W, what are the values of R, L, and power factor (pf).

Using AC voltage divider formula:

Power Factor Correction

 In heavy industry, many loads are partially inductive and large amount of reactive power flow.
 Remember power factor is not taken into account for residential customers.
 Energy rates are charged to industry depend on the power factor, with higher charges for energy delivered
at low power factors.
 Therefore, it is advantageous to choose loads that operate at near unity power factor [θ= 0, cos(θ) = 1]
 A common approach is to place capacitors in parallel with an inductive load to increase the power factor (i.e.
decrease ⇒cos increase, power factor increase).
 Note as →0, →0 100% power factor

Example

A 50 kW load operates from a 60 Hz 10 kV rms line with a power factor of 60% lagging. Compute the capacitance
that must be placed in parallel with the load to achieve a 90% lagging power factor
Measuring Power

 According to the ammeter and voltmeter readings, the apparent power is 464.4 VA
 The power meter shows 401 Watts.
 This indicates that the power factor can be determined by measuring voltage, current and power. The
system in the figure has a power factor of 401/464.4 = 0.86.
Maximum Power Transfer

For resistive circuits, the power transfer is maximised when the load is made equal to the source resistance.

We now wish to examine the power transfer for the case of an AC source driving a load impedance.

We wish to find suitable conditions for the load parameter RL and XL that will maximise power transfer to the load.

On average, reactances absorb zero power and thus any non zero values of would only reduce .

We can easily eliminate this term by imposing =−

 is minimized when =0 ⇒ =

For maximum power transfer = −

In words, power transfer from an AC source to a load is maximised, when the load impedance is made equal to the
complex conjugate of the source impedance.

Example

In the circuit shown below, find the load that will receive the maximum power.