ELEC 225 Circuit Theory I Fall 2007
Course Information
Objective The primary objective of this course is to introduce students to the fundamental circuit analysis techniques that are applied in all areas of electrical engineering. This includes the study of basic circuit elements such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, and operational amplifiers, and their response to both DC and time-varying sources. An introduction to sinusoidal steady-state analysis is included. This course serves as preparation for the companion course ELEC 226.
Textbook J. W. Nilsson and S. A. Riedel, Electric Circuits, 8th ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2007. ISBN: 0131989251 Several additional textbooks will be made available on reserve in the library.
Web Page http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/dkelley/elec225/
Prerequisite ELEC 120 or equivalent; corequisite: MATH 211 or equivalent
Instructor Prof. David Kelley, 368 Breakiron, 577-1313, ; office hours TBA
General Policies Check your e-mail and visit the course web page at least once per day. Most announcements,
homework assignments, study aids, and other course materials will be distributed only via the web page or Blackboard. E-mail will be used occasionally to distribute time-sensitive announcements.
You are expected to comply fully with the university's academic responsibility policies.
Grading Policy The final course grade will be determined as follows, although your weighted exam average must be greater than 50 in order for you to pass the course. Note that significant extra credit opportunities will rarely be provided.
Professional Conduct 5%
Laboratory 15% Includes reports and lab practical
Homework 15% Assignments weighted equally; lowest score will be dropped
Exam #1 20% Monday, Sept. 24 (tentative)
Exam #2 20% Monday, Oct. 29 (tentative)
Final Exam 25% Comprehensive, but will focus on latest material
Grades will not be discussed until a 24-hour “cooling off” period has passed, except in cases where points have been totaled incorrectly in obtaining an overall score. An absolute scale with the following distribution will be used to determine your final course grade:
93-100 A 87-89.9 B+ 77-79.9 C+ 60-69.9 D
90-92.9 A− 83-86.9 B 73-76.9 C < 60 F
80-82.9 B− 70-72.9 C−
Note that with an absolute scale you are not in competition with each other over grades. You are encouraged to help each other learn the material and raise each others’ grades.
Conflict Policy If you know that you will not be able to complete an assignment by its deadline or take an exam at
its scheduled time, you must notify me several days in advance. Less than 48 hours of notice will result in an automatic 5% grade penalty on the assignment, except in extenuating circumstances. Official university commitments such as recitals, field trips, and athletic competitions will normally be accommodated; however, in accordance with university policy, personal travel plans under your control will not.
Exam Policy Unexcused absences from exams (e.g., due to oversleeping) will be handled on a case-by-case
basis. Depending on the circumstances, a make-up opportunity might or might not be granted. If it is, an automatic 10% grade penalty will be imposed, and a challenging assignment could be substituted for the exam. Students arriving late to an exam will be offered the choice of completing it in the time remaining or taking a make-up exam under the conditions described above. A second or any additional unexcused absence will result in a grade of zero for the exam. Additional exam policies will be posted on the course web site on the “Exams” page.
Homework Policy The primary purpose of homework is to help you master the concepts presented in the course. I
encourage you to work on homework in groups and to help each other understand the material you are studying. However, copying solutions and other forms of plagiarism are not acceptable. I expect the actual solutions of homework problems to be your own work. If a classmate gives you a completed solution to look over or a set of step-by-step instructions for solving a problem, you are in danger of crossing the line into academic irresponsibility. Of course, group problems, if they are assigned, would be an exception to this. Homework is for your benefit. Your learning and retention will most likely suffer if you do not take advantage of the opportunity to practice solving problems on your own. Also, choose active studying over passive studying. Instead of simply reading the examples and derivations given in the book or in class, work out at least some of them for yourself.
Homework must be submitted by the indicated deadline. Place your name, the course number (ELEC 225), the homework number, and the page number at the top of each page, and staple all pages together. Where appropriate, clearly mark your answers by enclosing them in boxes. Use only one side of the paper, and trim the “chads” if you use paper torn from a spiral notebook. Lack of compliance with one or more of these requirements could result in a grade penalty. You are not required to submit your homework on green “engineering paper.” Sloppy or otherwise unreadable homework is unacceptable and could result in a grade of zero. A subset of the problems might be selected randomly for grading if the assignment is especially long. Assignments will be posted on the course web page, and solutions will be posted on Blackboard. It is your responsibility to obtain the homework assignment each week.
A 20% grade penalty will be assessed for homework submitted up to 8 hours after the deadline, a 50% penalty 8-48 hours after the deadline, and no credit thereafter. No homework will be accepted, regardless of when it is submitted, after the solutions have been posted; this supersedes the 8-hr and 48-hr partial credit allowances. Forgotten homework will be accepted without penalty if it is submitted immediately after the last consecutive class following ELEC 225. Other exceptions will be made only in the most extreme circumstances.
Laboratory Policies and requirements for the laboratory portion of the course will be distributed in the first
Assignments meeting of the laboratory section.
Professional I expect everyone in the classroom to act in a professional manner. Distractions that prevent your
Conduct fellow students from concentrating on instructional activities will not be tolerated. This includes
reading newspapers or other noisy print media, surfing the web, texting messages, distractive eating, excessive talking, chronic tardiness, and other inappropriate behavior. Since part of the educational mission of this university is to prepare you for professional practice, conduct in the classroom comprises a portion of your course grade. If you have a valid reason for being late every day, please let me know as soon as possible.
Recipe for Success Attend all lectures and keep up with the reading. Homework assignments will sometimes cover
material discussed in class as little as two days before the due date, since my assumption is that you have read the appropriate sections in the text book before coming to class. I suggest that you work on individual homework problems as soon as you understand how to solve them. My primary concern is that you understand the concepts and solution techniques presented in the course. I therefore look for valid thought processes, not necessarily correct numerical answers, in your solutions to problems. If an answer you obtain does not make sense physically (e.g., an answer that is orders of magnitude too large or too small), I expect you to notice it. Circuit theory is best learned through practice. You should try to solve as many problems as possible beyond those that are assigned for homework.
ELEC 225 Circuit Theory I Fall 2007
Tentative Course Outline
The material covered this semester will adhere closely to Chapters 1-6 and 9-10 in the textbook, although we will proceed rapidly through Chapters 1-4 since the material they cover is largely a review of ELEC 120. Note, however, that we will delve more deeply into some of the review topics than we did in ELEC 120. We will also likely cover part of Chap.7 at the end of the semester. Depending on the progression of the course, some material listed below might be omitted, and some material from topics outside the textbook might be added. Specific reading assignments will be posted on the course web page.
Week Lecture Dates Lecture Topics Lab Work
1 Aug. 22 Introduction; review of basic concepts (Chaps. 1-2) no lab
2 Aug. 27, 29 Review of voltage/current division; nodal and mesh anal. (Chaps. 3-4) TBA
3 Sept. 3, 5 Review of TECs/NECs; source transformations; superpos. (Chap. 4) Lab Intro.
4 Sept. 10, 12 Review of op-amps; realistic modeling of op-amps (Chap. 5) Lab 1
5 Sept. 17, 19 Review of capacitors and inductors (Chap. 6) no lab
6 Sept. 24, 26 Exam #1; mutual inductance (Chap. 6) Lab 2
7 Oct. 1, 3 Introduction to phasors and AC circuit analysis (Chap. 9) no lab
8 Oct. 8, 10 AC circuit analysis; Ohm’s law, KVL, and KCL for AC (Chap. 9) Lab 3
9 Oct. 17 Fall Recess; AC nodal analysis; matrix equations (Chap. 9) no lab
10 Oct. 22, 24 AC nodal and mesh analysis (Chap. 9) no lab
11 Oct. 29, 31 Exam #2; TECs/NECs in AC circuit analysis (Chap. 9) Lab 4
12 Nov. 5, 7 AC analysis of transformers (Chap. 9) no lab
13 Nov. 12, 14 Sinusoidal steady state (AC) power calculations (Chap. 10) Lab 5
14 Nov. 19 Complex power; maximum power transfer for AC circuits (Chap. 10) no lab
15 Nov. 26, 28 First-order RC and RL circuits (Chap. 7) Lab 6
16 Dec. 3 “Loose Ends,” Review for Final Exam Lab Practical