The secondary levels of electronic study comprises of Ohm's law and the laws of voltage and current by Kirchhoff. Circuit analysis requires these basic fundamentals in order to be designed and understood. George Simon Ohm was the physicist from Germany who practically determined the law that related voltage and current of a resistor and the law is named in honour of him. The law actually is the arithmetic relationship between voltage, current and resistance. It states that electric current is directly proportional to voltage and inversely to the amount of resistance offered. Through the use of Ohm's law, one can easily find values of the voltage across a resistance, the value of the resistance and the current flowing through the resistance if either of the two values is known.
Circuit analysis demands for one to understand these basic concepts in order to understand the finer points of circuit. These factors help one determine if the parts in are in series or parallel or are sharing the same current or drop in voltage.
A loop is any closed path in a circuit. And as we can realize, a node is a point that acts as the connection point for two or more branches and a branch is a single circuit part, maybe a resistor or source for voltage.
A branch represents a single circuit component such as a resistor or voltage source.
Kirchhoff's first law is the current law, abbreviated as KCL and it determines that the total current that enters an enclosing area of a circuit is valued at zero. Explaining it further, the current that enters a node is equal to the current that comes out, rendering the total value as zero.
Kirchhoff's first law is the current law, abbreviated as KCL and it determines that the total current that enters an enclosing area of a circuit is valued at zero. Explaining it further, the current that enters a node is equal to the current that comes out, rendering the total value as zero.
The second law is the voltage law which is abbreviated as KVL and it states that the sum of voltages around a closed loop equals to value of zero. The laws can be used to analyze circuits of electromotive forces and resistors. However they are useful only studying the circuits and cannot be simplified per se.
Kirchhoff's laws of current and voltage help in analyzing DC circuits because when one knows that all the voltages in a loop total up to zero and all the currents entering or leaving a node equals to zero, it simplifies the process of learning the values of current and voltage usually. In case a loop has one voltage source and several resistances, one has to use the voltage division to find the voltage drop value across the resistances whose value is known. And it simplifies after that when one finds the voltage as then Ohm's law can be utilized to value of current that flows through the resistance. Also one should keep in mind that the value of resistors in a series is added to give the value of resistance between two nodes. It is explained thus-
(Resistance value in branch no.1) x Resistance in branchno.2/ Sum of resistance in both branches.
DC circuits can also be explained through understanding of few other components of electronics such as current division, nodal and mesh analysis amongst others. They use the concepts of KCL and KVL laws but require proper demonstration.
Thus explained are a few basic and secondary levels of concepts in DC circuit. Electronics have a vast scope in itself and so has circuit theory. In order to understand them properly, one needs to dig deep into proper study and understanding of various concepts. Electronics tutorial that are available online or through eBooks can also help the students or general hobbyists if they wish to expand their knowledge on the subject.
The article has been provided by Vincent Barnes. Vincent has been a professor in Electronic engineering and his hobbies include reading, researching and writing. He has also contributed for science magazines in schools and otherwise
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