Electrical circuit analysis is our daily activity to solve an electrical circuit in order to get the variables we need. Circuit analysis will help us to find the value of voltage, current, power, and many more.
Practicing on electric circuit analysis is going to make us learn about more basic things first before jumping straight to analyzing an electrical circuit.
What is Electrical Engineering Circuit Analysis
Whoever decides to pursue a career as an electrical engineer will need to study hard about electrical engineering. The major of electrical engineering has a lot of sectors such as high voltage, low voltage, communication, installation, protection and safety, and many more.
Whichever you decide on, we all start with the most basic and general topic. It is electrical circuit analysis.
But as said above, we need to familiarize ourselves with the elements of an electrical circuit. For a start, there are two types of an electrical circuit based on what type of source supplies the circuit.
A Direct Current (DC) circuit is a circuit that is supplied by a DC voltage or current source. Contrary to that, an Alternating Current (AC) circuit is a circuit that is supplied by an AC voltage or current source.
Whether it is a DC or AC circuit, they still have the same active and passive elements that are used to build an electrical circuit.
Not only that, all the electrical engineering circuit analysis applied to a DC circuit will also apply to an AC circuit.
Electrical Circuit Analysis
Electrical circuit analysis comes with a lot of methods, forms, suitable conditions, and approaches. Some circuits can be easily analyzed by using basic electric circuit analysis, other circuits have to be analyzed by using advanced electric circuit analysis.
But remember, an advanced circuit analysis is born from several basic circuit analysis used together with specific order.
Even the most basic circuit analysis is able to solve a circuit efficiently. For example, Ohm’s Law will be used almost everytime we analyze a circuit since it shows the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance or impedance.
Kirchhoff’s Laws will help us to find the voltage or current on a desired point in a circuit easily by implementing Ohm’s Law and basic understanding about node, branch, and junction.
We will use Kirchhoff’s Laws again when analyzing a circuit with nodal voltage and mesh current.
Both nodal voltage and mesh current can be optimized further to analyze a special condition of a circuit, they are Supernode analysis and Supermesh current analysis.
For other approaches, we can use the superposition theorem and source transformation circuit if the circuit has more than one source.
All of the circuit analysis above will be used again to support more advanced circuit analysis such as:
All of them above can be used for AC electrical circuit analysis and DC electrical circuit analysis.
Except for the circuit analysis methods above, we need to use a more advanced mathematical approach, for example, transfer function and Laplace transform. This is true especially for AC electrical circuit analysis where complex numbers are involved.
DC circuit analysis is pretty straightforward because we do not need to involve ourselves with frequency, phase, complex number, and other advanced mathematical theories.
Electrical Engineering Circuit Analysis
Aside from the electric circuit analysis we can utilize, there are two types of electrical circuit. A circuit that generates, processes, receives, and transmits analog signals is known as analog circuit.
Contrary to that, a digital circuit utilizes logic gates to receive, process, and transmit signals in digital form. This circuit mainly uses logic gates that can be built from common electronic components.
While the discussed circuit analysis above can be used on both analog and digital circuits, a different approach should be utilized.
Analog circuit mainly uses an operational amplifier while digital circuit mainly uses logic gates and IC, it will make it harder for us to utilize conventional circuit analysis. We will talk about this later in another post.
For a starter, let us review all of them shortly.
Ohm’s Law shows us the relationship of voltage, current, and resistance (or impedance).
Kirchhoff’s Laws show us the voltages in a loop and the currents into a node.
The remaining analysis will be covered in other posts since they are quite long to be understood properly.
Not only that, we can utilize the circuit analysis to make an electrical filter circuit and learn how an electrical measurement tool works.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is electric circuit analysis?
Electric circuit analysis is the process of solving and calculating the voltages, currents, powers, resistances, and many other things in an electrical circuit consisting of several connected components. There may be basic and advanced elements to build a circuit and it has many functions.
What are the methods of analysis of electrical circuits?
There are basic and advanced electrical circuit analysis. The basics and fundamentals are Ohm’s Law, Kirchhoff’s Laws, nodal voltage, and mesh current. These can be used together to form more advanced analysis such as Thevenin and Norton.
How to analyze an electronic circuit?
For the common steps, first you need to determine which circuit analysis works best. Second, simplify the circuit into equivalent circuits with the known techniques. Third, solve the equivalent circuit to find the desired variables in the circuit.