Delay Lines

John Barber 10631852

Department of Physics and Astronomy

The University of Manchester

Second Year Laboratory Report

January 2023

This experiment was performed in collaboration with Jiaqi Hu and 10626671.

Abstract

The propagation of sine and square waves travelling through a lumped

element delay line was investigated to deduce the time delay per section and
the attenuation per section. These observations were then related to the
physical properties of the components that make up the delay line. The time
delay per section and attenuation factor were found to be
4.07 ± 0.33 × 10−5 s and 0.997 ± 0.084 respectively. The value found for the
time delay per section does not agree with the theoretical value of 1 × 10−6 s
however the value found for the attenuation does agree with the theoretical
value of 0.99.
 1. Introduction

The experiment aimed to investigate the reflection of sine and square waves
travelling down a lumped element delay line when the line was terminated by
an open circuit, a closed circuit and a capacitor. From these measurements,
the attenuation and time delay per section were determined and used to
investigate the line's characteristic impedance and cut-off frequency. When
the number of sections tends to infinity and the delay per section tends to
zero, limiting cases of the lumped-element delay line are found, such as
coaxial cables and twin-wire transmission lines (C. Qian & W. W. Brey, 2009).
Thus, this experiment allows for the properties of transmission lines to be
demonstrated in a technically easy situation where equipment is readily
available.

2. Theory

The delay line in this experiment consisted of twenty identical sections (Fig.1).

Figure 1: One section of the delay line.

For frequencies below a cut-off frequency,

0 = 2/ LC (1)
it is possible to propagate a wave along the delay line of the form
Vn = Aexp(i( t − n ) (2)
In = Vn / Z (3)
Here Vn and In are the voltage and the current in the nth section, is the
phase change per section and is given by
= cos −1(1− 2( / 0)2)
≃2 / 0 (= LC ) for ≪ 0 (4)

The time delay per section of the line is related to through

= /
≃ 2/ 0 (= LC ) for ≪ 0 (5)

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 Z is the characteristic impedance of the line and is given by

Z = LC / (1− ( / 0)2)
≃ LC for ≪ 0 (6)
The wave given by equation (2) is only defined at discrete points, given by the
variable n, as opposed to a more familiar wave with a continuous variable
such as x controlling the change in phase. (2) also describes a wave
travelling from left to right, i.e direction of increasing n. A wave travelling in
the opposite direction is given by
Vn = Aexp(i( t + n ) (7)
In = −Vn / Z (8)
If a finite line is terminated by an impedance other than the characteristic
impedance Z then reflection will occur so that there will be waves travelling in
both directions of the line simultaneously. Hence,
Vn = A(exp(i( t − n ) + rexp(i( t + n )) (9)

In = A(exp(i( t − n ) − rexp(i( t + n ))/ Z (10)

The reflection coefficient r is determined by the condition that
V0 / I0 = ZL (11)
where ZL is the terminating impedance. Using equations (9), (10) and (11)
gives
r = ZL −Z / ZL+Z (12)
from which the three special cases
r = -1 for ZL = 0
r = 0 for ZL = Z (13)
r = 1 for ZL = ∞
Can be deduced.
The above equations assume that the line is made from perfect capacitors
and inductors. In practice, the inductors each have a finite resistance of about
20 Ω and this causes attenuation of the waves. The attenuation factor, ɑ, per
section is approximately
ɑ = (1 − R/2Z ) for ≪ 0 (14)
so that the wave arriving back at the input should have an amplitude that has
been reduced by a factor of ɑ2n compared to the incident wave (B. I. Bleaney
and B. Bleaney, 1976).

3. Experimental method
A generator was connected to the line through a 1 KΩ resistance as shown in
Fig. 2

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 Figure 2: A diagram of the experimental
equipment and how it was set up.

3.1 Sine wave measurements

(a) The voltage, VIN, across the input terminals of the line was measured as a
function of frequency, using an oscilloscope, from 1 KHz to 100KHz for a
constant generator e.m.f, VG, and for terminating impedances of ∞, 0 and a
0.03 µF capacitor. The results were then plotted on a single graph so that the
results could be compared.
b) Next, the line was terminated by a variable resistor and measurements
were made as in (a) for various values of terminating resistance.
(c) The voltages, VIN and VOUT, were measured for a terminating resistance
equal to the characteristic impedance, as a function of frequency from 1KHz
to 1MHz.
(d) The 1KΩ resistor was then removed from the input and VOUT was
measured for ZL = ∞ as a function of frequency from 1KHz to 100 KHz.

3.2 Square wave measurements

(a) VIN and VOUT were displayed on an oscilloscope with the square wave
generator connected to the line through a 1 KΩ resistance at a frequency of
1 KHz. Measurements of VIN and VOUT were made at ZL values of ∞, 0,
variable resistance and a 0.1 µF capacitor. The resulting waveforms were
sketched and measurements were made from the screen of the oscilloscope.

Figure 3: The voltage in plotted against frequency

for terminating resistances of infinity and zero.

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 Figure 4: The voltage in plotted against
frequency when terminated by a capacitor.

4. Results
The results obtained for (a) in 3.1 are shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4.
The graph in Fig. 3 shows the voltage in plotted against frequency for
terminating resistances of infinity and zero. It can be determined from the
graph that the two waves are exactly 180 degrees out of phase which can be
explained by the value of the terminating resistance. Using equations (13) we
know that a terminating impedance of 0 corresponds to a reflection coefficient,
r, of -1, i.e full transmission of the wave. A terminating impedance of infinity
corresponds to r of 1, i.e full reflection. This explains the phase difference as
the wave shown for the terminating impedance of infinity is the superposition
of the outgoing wave and the wave reflected off the end of the line which has
the opposite polarity to the outgoing wave.
The graph in Fig. 4 shows the voltage in plotted against the frequency when
the line is terminated by a capacitor with a capacitance of 0.03 µF. The shape
of this graph can be explained by the charging behaviour of the capacitor.
Initially, the capacitor acts as a short circuit or for this experiment, an infinite
terminating impedance. As the capacitor charges, the reflection dies down
until the capacitor acts like a terminating impedance of zero and no reflection

Figure 5: The voltage in plotted against the

terminating resistance when terminated by a
variable resistor.
occurs (Prof. Brewer's research site). This explains why the shape and phase

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 of the wave in Fig. 4 begins like the wave in Fig. 3 for ZL = ∞ and then
changes as the capacitor charges to end up with the same shape and phase
as the wave for ZL = 0. The time delay per section and attenuation were
found in this part by using the ratio of successive peaks and troughs of the
graphs to find the difference in frequency and voltage which could then be
used with equations (5) and equation (15) that relates successive peaks of the
graph using the attenuation factor
VOUT = VIN ɑ2n (15)
The uncertainty in the measurement of the amplitude of the peaks was due to
the precision of the oscilloscope which was 20 mV. This gave us the final
results of 4.07 ± 0.33 × 10−5 s for the time delay and 0.997 ± 0.084 for the
attenuation factor.

The results obtained for (b) in 3.1 are shown in Fig. 5. The shape of this
graph is explained by the characteristic impedance of the line. The graph
shows the voltage increasing at a decreasing rate until the terminating
resistance matches the characteristic impedance of the line and the voltage
stops increasing and tails off. The voltage increase begins tailing off at
approximately 1000 Ω which agrees with the calculations done using equation
(6) which for ≪ 0 , gives 1000 Ω.

Figure 6: The log of Vout/Vin plotted against the

log of the frequency when the terminating
resistance is equal to the characteristic
impedance.

The results obtained for (c) are shown in Fig. 6. The value for the cut-off
frequency can be read from the graph. It shows a significant drop in the y-
axis at a value of 5.5 for the log of the frequency. The cut-off frequency can
be determined from the inverse log of 5.5 which gives
316,000 ± 13,000 Hz. The uncertainty was again due to the precision in the
measurement of the voltage of the oscilloscope. This can then be compared
to the theoretical value which can be calculated from equation (1) if it is

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 Figure 7: The voltage out plotted against
frequency for an infinite terminating resistance
and the resistor at input removed.
rearranged to find frequency using the equation relating frequency and
angular frequency
=2 f (16)
which gives a value of 318, 300 Hz. The value obtained from the graph is
very close to the theoretical with a percentage error of only 0.66% and the
true value lies within the uncertainty range of the measurement made.

The results obtained for (d) are shown in Fig. 7. The shape of the graph
made can be explained by considering what happens to the reflected wave
when it reaches the generator. The 1 KΩ resistor at the input was removed
so the input end of the line was no longer being kept at the terminating
impedance. Now the impedance of the input end was due to the generator
which has a very large impedance of 1 MΩ and so both ends of the line are at
effectively infinite impedances. This corresponds to total reflection at both
ends and so the results obtained are a summation of an infinite series of
waves reflecting back and forth from both ends.

For the results obtained in 3.2, measurements were made from the screen of
the oscilloscope and used to determine the time delay per section of the line
and the characteristic impedance. The results from using an infinite
terminating impedance shows total reflection of the square wave with a delay
of 20 µs with an uncertainty of plus and minus half the smallest visible division
which was 1 µs. This is the delay of the whole line and so divided by the
number of sections, 20, gives the delay of one section of the line which is
1 ± 0.5 µs. The theoretical delay can be calculated from equation (5) which,
for ≪ 0, gives the time delay per section as equal to 1 µs.
The characteristic impedance was determined by terminating the line with a
variable resistor. When the resistance of the variable resistor was set to zero
the resulting waveform was very similar to the waveform obtained for a
terminating resistance of zero. However, as the resistance increased up to
the characteristic impedance, the transmission of the wave slows until the
wave is not being transmitted or reflected at all and the input and output are
equal in phase, the output just being shifted by a small amount due to the total
delay of the line. This occurred at around 1000 Ω, again reinforcing the
agreement of the data with the theory.

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5. Discussion
The results collected in this experiment were fairly accurate and mostly
agreed with the theoretical values. The attenuation and cut-off frequency
were found to high accuracy and precision with the true values lying within the
uncertainty range. The values found for the time delay, however, in both parts
of the experiment were less accurate and precise. In the first part, the value
found has a large percentage error of around 60% and the value found in the
second part has a very large uncertainty with respect to its magnitude. The
problem with the first value found could be to do with the number of data
points collected. More data could have been collected to find the peak points
with greater accuracy and to even out any systematic error. Also, a curve of
best fit could have been plotted over the data points so that the data could be
interpolated to find the peak points of the curves to give more accuracy. The
second value has a large uncertainty due to the method used to find it being
limited by the resolution of the oscilloscope. For this experiment to be more
successful much more data could be collected for the relationships between
frequency and voltage in the first part of the experiment which would show the
relationships much clearer and would allow more meaningful conclusions to
be drawn.

6. Conclusion
In conclusion, this experiment was mostly successful. The values found for
the attenuation coefficient and cut-off frequency are accurate and in
concordance with the theory however, the values found for the time delay are
much less accurate and do not completely agree with the theory. Drawing
from this, the experiment could have been improved in several ways such as
by taking more data points and plotting a curve of best fit over the data points.

References
Prof. Brewer’s research site, university of California, Santa Barbara.
Interconnections as transmission lines. [online] Available at: https://
bears.ece.ucsb.edu/class/ece124d/interconnect.pdf

B. I. Bleaney and B. Bleaney, Electricity and magnetism (3rd edition)(Oxford

university press, 1976).

C. Qian, & W. W. Brey (2009). Impedance matching with an adjustable

segmented transmission line. Journal of Magnetic Resonance, 199 (1),
104-110. [online] available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmr.2009.04.005