# Area under v vs t sinusoidal trace

1. Jan 5, 2014

### lavster

if I have a sinusoidal trace on an oscilloscope (v vs t) and I wanted to find the area under the wave form squared graph I could integrate the sqaured waveform with respect to t.

but since i dont have the integration facility... is it fair to say that the area under the graph is proprtional to vrms^2 ?

im confused to what vrms is? the average v^2 value (i know its Vpeak/2)

thanks

2. Jan 5, 2014

### davenn

wiki has a pretty good article on rms

basically its 0.707 of the peak value
and from what I remember the rms power of an AC circuit ( average power) is the equivalent to the DC power
( did that make sense ?)

Dave

Last edited: Jan 5, 2014
3. Jan 5, 2014

### alva

An AC voltage of 10 volts rms ( no matter whether it is sinusoidal or not ) means that this AC voltage will heat up a resistor as a DC voltage of 10 volts.

Remember that the power transformed into heat is V^2 / R.

in a sinusoidal wave.

No, it is proportional to Vrms an also proportional to Vpeak ( because it is a sinuoidal wave ).