Lab 3 - Nodal Analysis

Nodal Analysis

Objectives:

1. Design a split plant operation circuit that would be fail-safe if one of the voltage sources would incur damage in a Typical Power System.
2. Apply nodal analysis to designed circuit using resistors as the load and cables in the System.

Process:

1. Problem
          Assign nodal voltage and establish unknown values of the power supplied by both batteries given the battery voltages, cable resistances, and load resistances. Measure current and voltage to determine validity of circuit analysis using the percent error equation.

2. Given Assumptions
          R_c1 = 100ohms
          R_c2 = R_c3 = 220ohms
          R_L1 = R_L2 = 1000ohms
          V_batt1 = 12volts
          V_batt2 = 9volts

3.Circuit Calculations

4. Built circuit

5. Data Collected

6. Data Analyzed

Conclusion:

In a Typical Power System, multiple voltage sources are used in conjunction with breakers to keep the system viable if one source should happen to get damaged. To emulate this situation an equivalent electrical circuit was given with all breakers closed(image one) and used for analysis fulfilling objective one. Nodal Analysis was performed on the designed circuit which gave V_2 at 10.28volts and V_3 at 8.77volts. Our measurements were near theoretical calculations except both currents were at a high error percentage rate. Possible cause for this is improper use of DMM or location of testing in the circuit.