Electrical Circuits & Devices (H6098)

15 credits, Level 4

Autumn teaching

On this module you’ll be introduced to the fundamentals of electrical engineering.

The main aim of this module is to introduce you to the basic concepts of circuit theory and help you develop an in-depth understanding of the behaviour of electrical circuits built of basic components, such as resistors, inductors and capacitors.

The module provides you with essential techniques to analyse electrical circuits, such as:

• node voltage and loop current methods
• Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits
• transient analysis of RL, RC and RLC circuits
• phasor techniques for AC steady-state analysis.

You’ll learn how electrical circuits and devices work, as well as how they are designed, analysed, built and tested. You’ll develop your knowledge and understanding in the field of electrical circuits and devices which have several applications, such as in electrical and electronics, electromechanics, communications, robotics and automotive engineering.

Module topics include:

• DC circuits – Ohm's law, Kirchhoff's laws, node and mesh analysis, Thvenin's theorem, Norton's theorem, superposition principle
• AC circuits – inductance (L) and Capacitance (C), sinusoidal steady-state, phasors
• energy dissipation and storage
• frequency response of R-L, R-C and R-L-C circuits, resonance
• transient response of R-L, R-C and R-L-C circuits
• operational amplifiers – inverting, non-inverting and differential amplifiers, integrators and differentiators, simple filters
• semiconductor devices – diodes, junction transistor as a switch, Boolean algebra, Karnaugh maps, Combinational logic
• simple circuit applications – rectifiers.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 49 hours of contact time and about 101 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2023/24. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.