MAE 3800 Instrumentation and Measurements Laboratory

Problem Set #1
Due: Tuesday, Sept. 30
Problem 1 (10 points) One method to measure the current passing through a load is by inserting a
shunt resistor with known resistance into the circuit and measure the voltage over the shunt
resistor. The voltage over the 4 Ohm shunt resistor is 2 volt in the figure. The load has a
resistance of 40 Ohm. Assume that the voltage supplied by the battery is a constant.
(a) What is the current flowing through the shunt resistor?
(b) What would have been the current flowing through the load if the shunt resistor had not been
inserted into the circuit?

I
40 Ohm
load
4 Ohm
shunt

Problem 2 (10 points) [Prob. 7.6] The circuit shown in Figure 7.37 is used to determine the value
of the unknown resistance R2 .
(a) If the voltmeter (input) resistance, R L , is 10 M and voltmeter reads eo = 4.65V , what
is the value of R2 ? Use this value to answer part (b).
(b) If the voltmeter has input impedance R L =1 k , what will be the measured voltage?

Problem 3 (10 points) [Prob. 9.4 ] Figure 9.20 illustrates a clipped sine wave. (a) Determine the
RMS voltage for this waveform. (b) When this voltage is applied to a resistor of 100 and
E 0 = 80V , calculate the power dissipated by the resistor.

Problem 4 (10 points) The voltage that is used to drive a piezoelectric actuator is a triangular
wave shown below, where the dimensionless parameter has the value between 0 and 1.
v(t )

2T

Sketch the wave forms for two special cases: (i) = 1 , (ii) = 1 / 2 . Calculate V , and V for
each case.

Problem 5 (10 points) [Prob. 7.23] The circuit shown in Fig. 7.42 is a voltage-to-current
converter.
(a) Determine the value of R3 for which i f in milliamps equals Vi in volts and find

Vo . Use these results to answer part (b).

(b) Remember that Vo (the OpAmp output voltage) cannot exceed the DC power
supply voltage. If the DC power supply is 15V determine the maximum value of
R f if we want produce 2 mA current in resistor R f without causing saturation in

OpAmp.