Experiment 3: "Nodal Analysis"

Introduction
     Perform nodal analysis on a reliable power system.
PART A
     - Find the nodal voltage of point 2 and 3
     - Find the current through battery 1 and 2
     - Calculate power supplied by each battery
     -Perform an experiment to verify the results.
     -Analyze the theoretical with the measured results.
PART B
     - Find the nodal voltages of each node such that the middle two nodes are of equal potential.
     - Find the current through battery 1 and 2
     - Calculate power supplied by each battery
     -Perform an experiment to verify the results.
     -Analyze the theoretical with the measured results.

Procedure

PART A

     This circuit was set up and we calculated the nodal voltage of point 2 and point 3, which turned out to be 10.28V and 8.67V.

We then calculated the current and power associated with the batteries

Our Circuit was set up based on the diagram. Because we used variable box resistors, building the circuit was more complex.

We measured each of the circuit elements taking note of the differences from our theoretical values.

Here is our results.

The measured results were off by a large margin, which was possibly due to the inaccuracy of the meters. It is difficult to measure small currents.

PART B

     The circuit was set up such that point 2 and point three were 9 volts.

The power supply was found to be: and the current also to be:

Power is calculated by this:

We used a variable power supply for this part.

Our measured Voltages and currents were very similar to our predictions.

Conclusion

     Part A: The result wasn't as expected. There were large errors that have to be accounted for, and the measured value of the resistors and voltages compared to the theoretical values aren't the culprit. I believe the power supply was somewhat current dependent or that the current meter couldn't handle precision to the milliamps.

     Part B: When hooked to the variable power supply, the currents and voltages were within the uncertainty of +- 5%, which meant that the circuit was hooked correctly and our theoretical calculations matched our measured values.