v3, 10 March 2011

19207 - EE272 Electromagnetism

Inductor Design Laboratory

1. Instructions

• Please read ALL of this document before starting the experimental work.
• You are provided with an exam booklet to act as the ‘Logbook’ for these experiments.
Please write your name and registration number on the front page before you begin.
• The exercise will be marked based on the Results Form which is provided as a
separate document. Please ensure that your name and registration number are written
on the Results Form as well. All results must be supported by evidence contained
in the ‘Logbook.’
• You must hand in the ‘Logbook’ and Results Form together for marking. These should
be submitted to the EEE Resource Centre before 4:30 pm on Monday 28th March 2011.
Ideally, if you manage to complete all working during the laboratory class, you may
hand in directly to staff at the end.

2. Introduction

The aim of this laboratory is to use design equations arising from electromagnetic theory to
design and construct a toroidal inductor. The inductance value will be determined indirectly
by measuring the resonant frequency of an LC circuit.

Students will be assessed individually on this exercise and it will count for 10% of the class
mark for 19207.

3. Theory

3.1 Toroidal Inductor

An example of a toroidal inductor is shown in Fig. 1. The equation for inductance L of this
type of coil is given by
µ µ N 2 Ae
L= 0 r (1)
le
where:
µ0 = 4 π × 10-7 H m-1 (permeability of free space)
µr = relative permeability of the core material
N = number of turns of wire wound onto the core
Ae = effective cross-sectional area of the core
le = effective path length around the circular centre line of the core.
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le N turns

Fig. 1 A toroidal inductor consists of a ‘doughnut’ shaped magnetic core

wound with insulated copper wire.

3.2 LC resonance

When an inductor and capacitor are connected either in series or in parallel, their response
will exhibit a resonance at the specific frequency where their reactive impedances have
the same magnitude. This is because (for ideal L and C) their impedances will be purely
imaginary and, while the inductive impedance will have a positive sign, the capacitive
impedance will be negative. The resonant frequency is given by the well-known equation:

1
fr = (2)
2π LC

In the experiments you will measure resonance using one of the four test circuits shown in
Fig. 2. With the knowledge that the combined impedance of two components having
impedances Z1 and Z2 respectively in series is given by:

Z S = Z1 + Z 2 for series combination (3)

Z1 × Z 2
ZP = for parallel combination (4)
Z1 + Z 2

Decide for each of the circuits (a) – (d) in Fig. 2 whether you would expect to see a
maximum or a minimum in the output voltage VO when the circuit is resonant.
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R=1k R=1k
L
C L
VI VO VI VO
C

(a) (b)

L C
L

VI VO C
R=1k VI VO
R=1k

(c) (d)
Fig. 2 Various connections of an LCR circuit. Input voltage is denoted by VI and output
voltage by VO. The voltage transfer function (or ‘gain’) of the circuit at
a given frequency f would be given by VO/VI.

3.2 ‘Q’ factor of a resonant circuit

The quality factor ‘Q’ of a tuned circuit is given by the equation:

fr
Q= (5)
fU − f L

where f U − f L represents the bandwidth of the circuit in Hz, which is the difference
between the upper half-power frequency and the lower half-power frequency. Q is the ratio
of resonant frequency to bandwidth, so it is a measure of the ‘sharpness’ of the resonance.
A circuit with a high quality factor Q will have a narrow response – that is, it will be more
selective in its range of frequencies, as illustrated in Fig. 3.

1.0 1.0
gain gain
0.8 fL fU 0.8 fL fU
1/√2 1/√2

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2
fr fr
0 0
frequency frequency
(a) (b)
Fig. 3 (a) A high Q resonance, and (b) a resonance with lower Q.
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4. Equipment

Equipment and components:

• Waveform generator
• Oscilloscope with two scope probes
• Digital multimeter
• Toroidal cores (material grade 4C65)
• 220 pF, 1% tolerance polystyrene capacitor, axial leads
• 1 kΩ resistor
• Connector blocks (screw terminal)
• Wire cutters
• Screwdriver

Additional shared resources:

• Reel of 0.5 mm diameter enamelled copper wire

5. Practical work

5.1 Design and construction

The main objective will be to design an inductor to form a circuit with a resonant frequency
of 1.0 MHz when combined with a 220 pF capacitor.

1. Calculate the value of inductance needed for resonance at 1.0 MHz with the 220 pF
capacitor using equation (2).

2. Referring to the datasheet for the core included at the end of these notes,
determine the number of turns needed to produce the required inductance using
equation (1). Note that the toroid core material is GRADE ‘4C65’ and µr is
represented by the symbol µi on the datasheet.

A note on winding the inductors:

It is a good idea to estimate the length of wire that you will need and cut to length before you
start winding (include some extra length, e.g., 25% for good measure). If you use an excessive
length there will be a lot of extra pulling through when you begin winding. Don’t forget to leave
a few cm of spare wire at each end of your winding to allow the coil to be connected to the
terminal block. However, if the leads end up being very long, shorten them to a useable length.

3. Wind the coil onto the core, aiming to keep the turns tight and evenly spaced. Use
the wire cutters to carefully scrape the enamel insulation off the last 1 cm or so of
the inductor’s wire ends. Make connections to the inductor using two terminals of
the connector block. Use a multimeter to check for a low resistance between the
two terminals – if this shows open circuit, it may be that the wire ends have not
been completely freed of insulation.

4. Now connect up the LCR circuit of Fig. 2(b) to measure the frequency response of
the circuit. Set up the signal generator to provide a sine wave of convenient
amplitude (e.g., 1 V rms). This forms the input voltage VI. Attach scope probes to
display both the input and output sine waves on the oscilloscope.

5. Vary the frequency over a range either side of your expected resonant frequency,
observing what happens to the output signal amplitude displayed on the
oscilloscope. Check that this is in line with your expectations.
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6. Having gained a feel for what to expect at step 5, carry out measurements at a
range of frequency points that will allow you to characterise the resonant response
by plotting the ratio VO/VI against frequency. Use the log-axis graph paper provided
in the Results Form – the response will look better with frequency on a logarithmic
scale.

7. Use the plot from step 6 to determine the resonant frequency and use this value to
estimate the actual value of the inductor you have constructed.

8. The tolerance on the value of the capacitor provided is ± 1%. Determine the best
accuracy (as ± X µH) that could be claimed for the inductance value you
determined at step 7 (neglecting all other sources of inaccuracy).

9. Calculate the Q factor for the resonant circuit using equation (5).

10. Now connect up the LCR circuit shown in Fig. 2(a), repeat the frequency response
measurement and plot your results, following a similar procedure to steps 5 and 6.

11. Estimate the resonant frequency in this second configuration and use it to derive a
second value for your inductance L.

12. If the resonance had to be set very accurately to 1.000 MHz, using a fixed
capacitance and varying the number of turns on the coil is not practical. Estimate
the change in resonant frequency that would be caused by taking off a single turn
from the inductor you have constructed.

At this point, make sure that you have completed all the working required to complete the
Results Form. If so, please proceed as follows:

• Add a second, smaller winding to the core to make it into a transformer. The second
winding should have either 1/3 or 1/4 the number of turns of the existing winding.
Verify experimentally that the voltage step-up / step-down capabilities of the
transformer in the MHz frequency range are in accordance with the turns ratio.

• Now that you have experienced the pleasures of hand-winding a toroid, imagine what
it would be like to attempt 500 turns! Can you think how these coils could be wound
by a machine? See www.youtube.com/watch?v=98q4Ic6UL7c for an example.

FINALLY: PLEASE REMOVE THE WIRE FROM YOUR CORE(S) BEFORE LEAVING SO
THEY ARE READY FOR THE NEXT GROUP – THANKS.
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