ELEC 225: Circuit Theory I
Bucknell University, Fall 2008


Course Objectives:

Students finishing this course will understand fundamental circuit analysis techniques, including sinusoidal steady-state methods. Students will be prepared to take ELEC 226 in the next semester, which will include time-domain circuit analysis, Laplace transform methods, and frequency analysis of circuits and signals using Fourier series and transforms.


Instructors and Office Hours:

The course will be co-taught by Professors Maurice Aburdene and Rich Kozick. Professor Kozick will teach the lectures and Professor Aburdene will teach the laboratories.

Richard J. Kozick (Lectures)
Office: Room 067 Breakiron
Phone: (570) 577-1129
Email: kozick@bucknell.edu
http://www.linux.bucknell.edu/~kozick 		Maurice Aburdene (Labs)
Office: Room 301 Dana
Phone: (570) 577-1234
Email: aburdene@bucknell.edu

Office hour schedule for Professor Kozick for Fall, 2008 is Monday 2-3, Tuesday 11-12, Wednesday 3-4, and Thursday 11-12.
Other times can be arranged - talk to me in class, send email, or call.
Refer to the course home page for the most up-to-date office hours.


Prerequisites:

ELEC 120 and MATH 201, 202. Corequisite: MATH 211.


Required Textbook:

Electric Circuits (8th Edition), by J.W. Nilsson and S.A. Riedel, Prentice-Hall, 2008
and online resources for the textbook.

The library has many books on circuit analysis. We encourage you to read a variety of books in order to see different explanations and additional examples.


Optional Supplement:

Introduction to PSpice Manual for Electric Circuits, by J.W. Nilsson, Prentice-Hall, 2008.

This supplement to the main textbook includes a CD with OrCAD Release 10.5 PSpice software. We will use PSpice in this course for homework and for labs. You will also use PSpice in future courses.


Course Home Page:

The home page for the ELEC 225 course is located at
http://www.linux.bucknell.edu/~kozick/elec22508
It can also be accessed by following the link from
http://www.linux.bucknell.edu/~kozick

The course home page contains homework assignments and solutions, syllabus, links to laboratory assignments, and other course information.

Grading:

Grades for the course will be determined as follows. 

Two in-class exams (15% each)            30% 
Short quizzes and class participation    10%
Final exam                               20%
Homework                                 15%
Laboratories                             25%

Exams and Quizzes:

Two in-class exams will be given on the following dates:
Monday, September 29 and Monday, November 10.
The course will conclude with a comprehensive final exam.

Short quizzes (announced or unannounced) will also be given to check your understanding of the material as we proceed through the course. Missed quizzes cannot be made-up, but your lowest quiz grade will be dropped. We will also do in-class exercises (individually and in groups) that will be counted toward the "Short quizzes and class participation" grade component.


Homework:

Homework will be assigned regularly to give you practice with the course material. It will be due at the beginning of class on the specified due date. Late assignments will not be accepted because solutions will be posted and reviewed during class on the due date.

You are allowed and encouraged to work on the homework with groups of your classmates. The purpose of the homework is to practice with the material and to improve your understanding. We encourage you to learn from each other, and also to ask us when you have questions. However, the homework solutions that you submit for grading must be written individually. Be sure that you understand the reasoning for each problem, even if you initially solved the problem with help from your classmates.


Laboratories:

Laboratories will be held every other week, on the following dates:
September 4 and 18
October 2, 16, and 30
November 13
December 4
Professor Aburdene will teach the laboratory sessions, and students will work in pairs on the labs for this course. Some of the lab exercises will serve as illustrations of the course material, while others may be design projects in which you choose the topic. Each group will be asked to write a lab report and/or present your project to the class (one report per lab group).

Attendance at all laboratory sessions is expected and required. If you have a legitimate reason for missing lab, please see Prof. Aburdene or Prof. Kozick as soon as possible to make arrangements for making up the lab session. Please attend during your assigned lab section.

Each student should keep a lab notebook for this course, but we will not collect your notebooks for grading. The lab notebook will serve two purposes. First, it is a good way to organize the notes and data that you'll need to prepare the lab report. Second, it provides a good reference for future labs that you can use to remember how to perform certain operations with the instruments.

The lab report requirements will be specified for each lab exercise. The reports will range from a brief summary of your activities to a more comprehensive documentation of your analysis, design, and measurement results.


ABET Course Outcomes:

Please see the ABET link on the course home page.

Tentative Outline:

The material in Chapters 1-6 and 9 will be emphasized, with additional topics from Chapters 10 or 11 if time permits.
Chapter 1:
Review of basic electrical quantities, sign conventions.

Chapters 2 and 3:
Sources and elements, v = i r, KCL, KVL, simple resistor circuits (series, parallel, voltage divider, bridge, Delta-Y).

Chapter 4 and Appendix A:
Circuit analysis techniques: node-voltages, mesh-currents, Thevenin and Norton equivalents, superposition. Appendix A: review solutions to linear simultaneous equations.

Chapters 4 and 5:
Finish topics from Chapter 4. Operational amplifiers: useful circuits with resistors, finite gain models for op amps.

Chapter 6:
Voltage-current relations for capacitors and inductors, mutual inductance.

Chapter 9 and Appendix B:
Sinusoidal steady-state circuit analysis; phasors, impedance, frequency-domain circuit analysis, Thevenin and Norton equivalents, node-voltage, mesh-currents, transformers. Appendix B: Review complex numbers.

Chapters 10 and 11:
Sinusoidal steady-state power and three-phase circuits.