Day 9 (Maximum Power Transfer)

The day started by learning of the idea that a thevenin circuit with a thevenin resistance has a maximum power output based on the load resistance and we speculated what that load might be.

When the resistance load is equal to the thevenin resistance then the maximum power output is attained. Next we did an example of what calculating the optimal resistance load and the maximum power were for a circuit.

We repeated this process for another circuit.

Then we started the lab Maximum Power Transfer. The lab made us use a potentiometer to load out a series of varying resistance and we experimentally found what resistance would give us the maximum power across the resistor. We entered the data into excel and logger pro to get the following graphs and equations.