AC, DC and Electrical Signals

AC means Alternating Current and DC means Direct Current. AC and DC are also used when referring to voltages and electrical signals which are not currents! For example: a 12V AC power supply has an alternating voltage (which will make an alternating current flow). An electrical signal is a voltage or current which conveys information, usually it means a voltage. The term can be used for any voltage or current in a circuit. Alternating Current (AC)

AC from a power supply

This shape is called a sine wave.

Alternating Current (AC) flows one way, then the other way, continually reversing direction.

This triangular signal is AC because it changes between positive (+) and negative (-).

An AC voltage is continually changing between positive (+) and negative (-). The rate of changing direction is called the frequency of the AC and it is measured in hertz (Hz) which is the number of forwards-backwards cycles per second. Mains electricity in the UK has a frequency of 50Hz. See below for more details of signal properties. An AC supply is suitable for powering some devices such as lamps and heaters but almost all electronic circuits require a steady DC supply (see below).

Direct Current (DC)

Direct Current (DC) always flows in the same direction, but it may increase and decrease. A DC voltage is always positive (or always negative), but it may increase and decrease. Electronic circuits normally require a steady DC supply which is constant at one value or a smooth DC supply which has a small variation called ripple. Cells, batteries and regulated power supplies provide steady DC which is ideal for electronic circuits. Power supplies contain a transformer which converts the mains AC supply to a safe low voltage AC. Then the AC is converted to DC by a bridge rectifier but the output is varying DC which is unsuitable for electronic circuits.

Steady DC
from a battery or regulated power supply, this is ideal for electronic circuits.

Smooth DC
from a smoothed power supply, this is suitable for some electronics.

Varying DC
from a power supply without smoothing, this is not suitable for electronics.

Some power supplies include a capacitor to provide smooth DC which is suitable for less-sensitive electronic circuits, including most of the projects on this website. Lamps, heaters and motors will work with any DC supply. Please see the Power Supplies page for further information. Power supplies are also covered by the Electronics in Meccano website.

Properties of electrical signals

An electrical signal is a voltage or current which conveys information, usually it means a voltage. The term can be used for any voltage or current in a circuit. The voltage-time graph on the right shows various properties of an electrical signal. In addition to the properties labelled on the graph, there is frequency which is the number of cycles per second. The diagram shows a sine wave but these properties apply to any signal with a constant shape.

Amplitude is the maximum voltage reached by the signal.

It is measured in volts, V. Peak voltage is another name for amplitude.

Peak-peak voltage is twice the peak voltage (amplitude). When

reading an oscilloscope trace it is usual to measure peak-peak voltage. Time period is the time taken for the signal to complete one cycle. It is measured in seconds (s), but time periods tend to be short so milliseconds (ms) and microseconds (s) are often used. 1ms = 0.001s and 1s = 0.000001s. Frequency is the number of cycles per second. It is measured in hertz (Hz), but frequencies tend to be high so kilohertz (kHz) and megahertz (MHz) are often used. 1kHz = 1000Hz and 1MHz = 1000000Hz.
frequency = 1 time period and time period = 1 frequency

Mains electricity in the UK has a frequency of 50Hz, so it has a time period of 1/50 = 0.02s = 20ms.

Root Mean Square (RMS) Values The value of an AC voltage is continually changing from zero up to the positive peak, through zero to the negative peak and back to

zero again. Clearly for most of the time it is less than the peak voltage, so this is not a good measure of its real effect. Instead we use the root mean square voltage (VRMS) which is 0.7 of the peak voltage (Vpeak): VRMS = 0.7 Vpeak and Vpeak = 1.4 VRMS These equations also apply to current. They are only true for sine waves (the most common type of AC) because the 0.7 and 1.4 are different values for other shapes. The RMS value is the effective value of a varying voltage or current. It is the equivalent steady DC (constant) value which gives the same effect. For example a lamp connected to a 6V RMS AC supply will light with the same brightness when connected to a steady 6V DC supply. However, the lamp will be dimmer if connected to a 6V peak ACsupply because the RMS value of this is only 4.2V (it is equivalent to a steady 4.2V DC). You may find it helps to think of the RMS value as a sort of average, but please remember that it is NOT really the average! In fact the average voltage (or current) of an AC signal is zero because the positive and negative parts exactly cancel out!
What do AC meters show, is it the RMS or peak voltage?

AC voltmeters and ammeters show the RMS value of the voltage or current. DC meters also show the RMS value when connected to varying DC providing the DC is varying quickly, if the frequency is less than about 10Hz you will see the meter reading fluctuating instead.
What does '6V AC' really mean, is it the RMS or peak voltage?

If the peak value is meant it should be clearly stated, otherwise assume it is the RMS value. In everyday use AC voltages (and currents) are always given as RMS values because this allows a sensible comparison to be made with steady DC voltages (and currents), such as from a battery. For example a '6V AC supply' means 6V RMS, the peak voltage is 8.6V. The UK mains supply is 230V AC, this means 230V RMS so the peak voltage of the mains is about 320V!

So what does root mean square (RMS) really mean?

First square all the values, then find the average (mean) of these square values over a complete cycle, and find the square root of this average. That is the RMS value. Confused? Ignore the maths (it looks more complicated than it really is), just accept that RMS values for voltage and current are a much more useful quantity than peak values.

The RMS value of a set of values (or a continuous-time waveform) is the square root of the arithmetic mean (average) of the squares of the original values (or the square of the function that defines the continuous waveform). In the case of a set of n values , the RMS value is given by:

The corresponding formula for a continuous function (or waveform) f(t) defined over the interval is

and the RMS for a function over all time is

The RMS over all time of a periodic function is equal to the RMS of one period of the function. The RMS value of a continuous function or signal can be approximated by taking the RMS of a series of equally spaced samples. Additionally, the RMS value of various waveforms can also be determined without calculus, as shown by Cartwright.
[1]

In the case of the RMS statistic of a random process, the expected value is used instead of the mean.

[edit] RMS of common waveforms

Waveform Sine wave Equation RMS

Square wave

Modified square wave

Sawtooth wave Notes: t is time f is frequency a is amplitude (peak value) {r} is the fractional part of r

[edit] Uses

The RMS value of a function is often used in physics and electrical engineering. [edit] Average electrical power Electrical engineers often need to know the power, P, dissipated by an electrical resistance, R. It is easy to do the calculation when there is a constant current, I, through the resistance. For a load of R ohms, power is defined simply as:

However, if the current is a time-varying function, I(t), this formula must be extended to reflect the fact that the current (and thus the instantaneous power) is varying over time. If the function is periodic (such as household AC power), it is nonetheless still meaningful to talk about the average power dissipated over time, which we calculate

by taking the simple average of the power at each instant in the waveform or, equivalently, the squared current. That is,
(where function) (as R does not vary over time, it can be factored out) (by definition of RMS) denotes the mean of a

So, the RMS value, IRMS, of the function I(t) is the constant signal that yields the same power dissipation as the time-averaged power dissipation of the current I(t). We can also show by the same method that for a time-varying voltage, V(t), with RMS value VRMS,

This equation can be used for any periodic waveform, such as a sinusoidal or sawtooth waveform, allowing us to calculate the mean power delivered into a specified load. By taking the square root of both these equations and multiplying them together, we get the equation

Both derivations depend on voltage and current being proportional (i.e., the load, R, is purely resistive). Reactive loads (i.e., loads capable of not just dissipating energy but also storing it) are discussed under the topic of AC power. In the common case of alternating current when I(t) is a sinusoidal current, as is approximately true for mains power, the RMS value is easy to calculate from the continuous case equation above. If we define Ip to be the peak current, then:

where t is time and is the angular frequency ( = 2/T, whereT is the period of the wave). Since Ip is a positive constant:

Using a trigonometric identity to eliminate squaring of trig function:

but since the interval is a whole number of complete cycles (per definition of RMS), the sin terms will cancel, leaving:

A similar analysis leads to the analogous equation for sinusoidal voltage:

Where IP represents the peak current and VP represents the peak voltage. It bears repeating that these two solutions are for a sinusoidal wave only. Because of their usefulness in carrying out power calculations, listed voltages for power outlets, e.g. 120 V (USA) or 230 V (Europe), are almost always quoted in RMS values, and not peak values. Peak values can be calculated from RMS values from the above formula, which implies Vp = VRMS 2, assuming the source is a pure sine wave. Thus the peak value of the mains voltage in the USA is about 120 2, or about 170 volts. The peak-to-peak voltage, being twice this, is about 340 volts. A similar calculation indicates that the peak-to-peak mains voltage in Europe is about 650 volts.

It is also possible to calculate the RMS power of a signal. By analogy with RMS voltage and RMS current, RMS power is the square root of the mean of the square of the power over some specified time period. This quantity, which would be expressed in units of watts (RMS), has no physical significance. However, the term "RMS power" is sometimes used in the audio industry as a synonym for "mean power" or "average power". For a discussion of audio power measurements and their shortcomings, see Audio power.
[edit] Amplifier power efficiency

The electrical efficiency of an electronic amplifier is the ratio of mean output power to mean input power. The efficiency of amplifiers is of interest when the energy used is significant, as in high-power amplifiers, or when the power-supply is taken from a battery, as in a transistor-radio. Efficiency is normally measured under steady-state conditions with a sinusoidal current delivered to a resistive load. The power output is the product of the measured voltage and current (both RMS) delivered to the load. The input power is the power delivered by the DC supply, i.e. the supply voltage multiplied by the supply current. The efficiency is then the output power divided by the input power, and it is always a number less than 1, or, in percentages, less than 100. A good radio frequency power amplifier can achieve an efficiency of 6080%.[2] Other definitions of efficiency are possible for time-varying signals. As discussed, if the output is resistive, the mean output power can be found using the RMS values of output current and voltage signals. However, the mean value of the current should be used to calculate the input power. That is, the power delivered by the amplifier supplied by constant voltage VCC is

where IQ is the amplifier's operating current. Clearly, because VCC is constant, the time average of Pinput depends on the time average value of Iout and not its RMS value. That is,

[edit] Root mean square speed Main article: Root mean square speed

In the physics of gas molecules, the root mean square speed is defined as the square root of the average speed-squared. The RMS speed of an ideal gas is calculated using the following equation:

where R represents the Ideal Gas Constant (in this case, 8.314 J/(molK)), T is the temperature of the gas in kelvins, and M is the molar mass of the gas in kilograms. The generally accepted terminology for speed as compared to velocity is that the former is the scalar magnitude of the latter. Therefore, the rms speed and average speed are the same, but the average velocity for a stationary gas is zero. [edit] Root mean square error Main article: Root mean square error When two data setsone set from theoretical prediction and the other from actual measurement of some physical variable, for instanceare compared, the RMS of the pairwise differences of the two data sets can serve as a measure how far on average the error is from 0. The mean of the pairwise differences does not measure the variability of the difference, and the variability as indicated by the standard deviation is around the mean instead of 0. Therefore, the RMS of the differences is a meaningful measure of the error.
[edit] RMS in frequency domain

The RMS can be computed also in frequency domain. The Parseval's theorem is used. For sampled signal:

, where X(f) = FFT{x(t)}, n is number of x(t) samples. In this case, the RMS computed in time domain is the same as in frequency domain:

What is the difference between RMS and average value Answer RMS value is the value of root # 1 of square of posiitive and 0 Vivek

negative both values and it is positive while average may be negative or zero also. RMS value of a sine wave of amplitude 1 is 1/sqrt(2) while its average is zero.
Is This Answer Correct ?

30 Yes

14 No

Re: What is the difference between RMS and average value Answer RMS value is the root of the # 2 average of the square of the

instantaneous value of any wave. Being the squared it comes always in positive value. It plays important role in representing the value of sine wave (Mains voltage specifically).It's value for a sine wave is equal to Peak votage/sqrt(2). However average value is the simple average of any wave. It comes positive for positive half and negative for negative half of a sine wave. It's value is Peak voltage/Pie for one half only and zero for a complete sine wave. Generally AC Voltage is represented in terms of RMS value.