What is Resonance?

In an electrical circuit the condition that exists when the

inductive reactance and the capacitive reactance are of equal
magnitude, causing electrical energy to oscillate between the
magnetic field of the inductor and electrical field of the
capacitor.

What is Series Resonance

An AC circuit containing a resistor, a capacitor and an inductor

To recap, the capacitor has a capacitive reactance ( ) given
by . The inductor has an inductive reactance ( ) given
by . We saw that the magnitude of the total impedance
can be given by .
The current through the circuit is given by . If we change
the frequency of the AC current, we can change both and . As
these values change, the total impedance of the circuit will also
change. This would mean that the size of the current through the
circuit would change as well. In particular, when we look at the
equation for impedance, we can see that when , the
impedance is minimum ( ). At this value, therefore, the current
through the circuit would be at a maximum. The graph below depicts
how the current through the circuit changes, as we change the
frequency of the AC current.

A graph of current vs. frequency for a series RLC resonant circuit

At the resonant frequency, . This means that .

We can solve this to show that the resonance frequency is given by:
What is Parallel Resonance
Parallel resonance occurs in circuits where inductors and capacitors
are connected in parallel, as shown below:

A parallel RLC circuit

Since impedances do not add up in the same way in parallel circuits as
they do in series circuits, a quantity called admittance ( ) is used to
describe parallel resonance circuits. Admittance is simply the
reciprocal of impedance:
The conductance ( ) is given by the reciprocal of resistance:

For parallel circuits, susceptance is the quantity analogous to

reactance in series circuits. Capacitive susceptance ( ) is given
by . Inductive susceptance ( ) is given by . The
admittance can be expressed using these quantities:

For parallel RLC circuits, resonance occurs when .

Here, and solving for the resonance frequency we once
again find that:

The current across a parallel RLC circuit would take a minimum value
when it is at resonance. This is because the circuit’s impedance is at
the maximum value at this time.
Difference Between Series and Parallel
Resonance
Impedance
At the resonant frequency, a series RLC circuit has the minimum
impedance, whereas a parallel RLC circuit has maximum impedance.
Current
At the resonant frequency, a series RLC circuit has the maximum
current, whereas a parallel RLC circuit has minimum impedance.