COMPARISON OF SERIES AND

PARALLEL RESONANCE
CIRCUITS

ELECTRICAL RESONANCE
Electrical resonance occurs in an electric circuit at a
particular resonance frequency where the imaginary parts of
circuit element impedances or admittances cancel each
other. In some circuits this happens when the impedance
between the input and output of the circuit is almost zero
and the transfer function is close to one.
Resonant circuits exhibit ringing and can generate
higher voltages and currents than are fed into them. They are
widely used in wireless (radio) transmission for both
transmission and reception.
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RLC Circuit Introduction

An RLC circuit (or LCR circuit) is an electrical circuit

consisting of a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor,
connected in series or in parallel. The RLC part of the name
is due to those letters being the usual electrical symbols for
resistance, inductance and capacitance respectively. The
circuit forms a harmonic oscillator for current and will
resonate in a similar way as an LC circuit will. The main
difference that the presence of the resistor makes is that any
oscillation induced in the circuit will die away over time if it
is not kept going by a source.
This effect of the resistor is called damping. The
presence of the resistance also reduces the peak resonant
frequency somewhat. Some resistance is unavoidable in real
circuits, even if a resistor is not specifically included as a
component. A pure LC circuit is an ideal which really only
exists in theory.
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Resonance In Electric Circuits

Any passive electric circuit will resonate if it has an inductor

and capacitor.

Resonance is characterized by the input voltage and current

being in phase. The driving point impedance (or admittance)
is completely real when this condition exists.

In this presentation we will consider

(a) series resonance, and
(b) parallel resonance.
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SERIES RESONANCE
CONDITION

Series Resonance
Consider the series RLC circuit shown below.

V = VM 0

V _

The input impedance is given by:

Z R j ( wL

1
)
wC

The magnitude of the circuit current is;

I | I |

Vm
R 2 ( wL

1 2
)
wC
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Series Resonance
Resonance occurs when,

1
wL
wC
At resonance we designate w as wo and write;
o

1
,
LC

fo

1
2 LC

This is an important equation to remember. It applies

to both series and parallel resonant circuits.
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Series Resonance
The magnitude of the current response for the series
resonance circuit is as shown below.

|I|

Vm
R

Vm
2R

Half power point

w1 wo w2

Bandwidth:

BW = wBW = w2 w1
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Series Resonance
The peak power delivered to the circuit is;
2

V
P m
R

The so-called half-power is given when .

Vm
2R

We find the frequencies, w1 and w2, at which this half-power

occurs by using;
1 2
2 R R ( wL
)
wC
2

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Series Resonance
After some insightful algebra one will find two frequencies at which
the previous equation is satisfied, they are:
2

R
1
R
w1


2L
2 L LC
and
2

R
1
R
w2

2L
2 L LC
The two half-power frequencies are related to the resonant frequency by

wo w1w2
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Series Resonance
The bandwidth of the series resonant circuit is given by;
BW wb w2 w1

R
L

We define the Q (quality factor) of the circuit as;

wo L
1
1 L
Q

R
wo RC R C
Using Q, we can write the bandwidth as;
wo
BW
Q

These are all important relationships.

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Series Resonance
Duality

1
1
I V jwC

R
jwL

1
V I R jwL

jwC

We notice the above equations are the same provided:

1
R

If we
we make
makethe
theinner-change,
inner-change,
If
thenone
oneequation
equationbecomes
becomes
then
the same
sameas
asthe
theother.
other.
the
Forsuch
suchcase,
case,we
wesay
saythe
theone
one
For
circuitisisthe
thedual
dualofofthe
theother.
other.
circuit

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 The features of series resonance:

The impedance is purely resistive, Z = R;
The supply voltage Vs and the current I are in
phase (cosq = 1)
The magnitude of the transfer function H() =
Z() is minimum;
The inductor voltage and capacitor voltage can
be much more than the source voltage.
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QUALITY FACTOR OF SERIES RESONANCE

Q

Q 2

o
B

Peak Energy Stored

Energy Dissipated in one Period at Resonance
L
1
Q o
R
o RC

o L
R

1
o RC

R o
B
L Q
B
B
1 o , 2 o
2
2

PARALLEL RESONANCE
CONDITION

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The properties of the parallel RLC circuit can be obtained from the
duality relationship of electrical circuits and considering that the
parallel RLC is the dual impedance of a series RLC. Considering this
it becomes clear that the differential equations describing this circuit
are identical to the general form of those describing a series RLC.
For the parallel circuit, the attenuation is given by

and the damping factor is consequently

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This is the inverse of the expression for in the series circuit.

Likewise, the other scaled parameters, fractional bandwidth
and Q are also the inverse of each other. This means that a
wide band, low Q circuit in one topology will become a
narrow band, high Q circuit in the other topology when
constructed from components with identical values.
The Q and fractional bandwidth of the parallel circuit
are given by

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22

The End

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