Skip to content Skip to navigation

Connexions

You are here: Home » Content » Kirchhoff's Laws

Navigation

Recently Viewed

This feature requires Javascript to be enabled.

Kirchhoff's Laws

Module by: Don Johnson. E-mail the author

User rating (How does the rating system work?)
Ratings

Ratings allow you to judge the quality of modules. If other users have ranked the module then its average rating is displayed below. Ratings are calculated on a scale from one star (Poor) to five stars (Excellent).

How to rate a module

Hover over the star that corresponds to the rating you wish to assign. Click on the star to add your rating. Your rating should be based on the quality of the content. You must have an account and be logged in to rate content.

:
(0 ratings)

Summary: A brief description of Kirchhoff's Laws (current and voltage)

Note: Your browser may not currently support MathML. See our browser support page for additional details. You can always view the correct math in the PDF version.

Kirchhoff's Current Law

At every node, the sum of all currents entering a node must equal zero. What this law means physically is that charge cannot accumulate in a node; what goes in must come out. In the example, Figure 1, below we have a three-node circuit and thus have three KCL equations.

-i− i 1 =0 i i 1 0 (1)
i 1 − i 2 =0 i 1 i 2 0 (2)
i+ i 2 =0 i i 2 0 (3)
Note that the current entering a node is the negative of the current leaving the node.

Given any two of these KCL equations, we can find the other by adding or subtracting them. Thus, one of them is redundant and, in mathematical terms, we can discard any one of them. The convention is to discard the equation for the (unlabeled) node at the bottom of the circuit.

Figure 1: The circuit shown is perhaps the simplest circuit that performs a signal processing function. The input is provided by the voltage source v in v in and the output is the voltage v out v out across the resistor labelled R 2 R 2 .
Figure 1
(a) (b)
Figure 1(a) (circuit4.png)Figure 1(b) (circuit4a.png)

Exercise 1

In writing KCL equations, you will find that in an nn-node circuit, exactly one of them is always redundant. Can you sketch a proof of why this might be true? Hint: It has to do with the fact that charge won't accumulate in one place on its own.

Solution

KCL says that the sum of currents entering or leaving a node must be zero. If we consider two nodes together as a "supernode", KCL applies as well to currents entering the combination. Since no currents enter an entire circuit, the sum of currents must be zero. If we had a two-node circuit, the KCL equation of one must be the negative of the other, We can combine all but one node in a circuit into a supernode; KCL for the supernode must be the negative of the remaining node's KCL equation. Consequently, specifying n−1 n 1 KCL equations always specifies the remaining one.

Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL)

The voltage law says that the sum of voltages around every closed loop in the circuit must equal zero. A closed loop has the obvious definition: Starting at a node, trace a path through the circuit that returns you to the origin node. KVL expresses the fact that electric fields are conservative: The total work performed in moving a test charge around a closed path is zero. The KVL equation for our circuit is

v 1 + v 2 −v=0 v 1 v 2 v 0 (4)
In writing KVL equations, we follow the convention that an element's voltage enters with a plus sign if traversing the closed path, we go from the positive to the negative of the voltage's definition.

Content actions

Give Feedback:

E-mail the module author | Rate module ( How does the rating system work?)

Rating system

Ratings

Ratings allow you to judge the quality of modules. If other users have ranked the module then its average rating is displayed below. Ratings are calculated on a scale from one star (Poor) to five stars (Excellent).

How to rate a module

Hover over the star that corresponds to the rating you wish to assign. Click on the star to add your rating. Your rating should be based on the quality of the content. You must have an account and be logged in to rate content.

(0 ratings)

Download:

Module PDF

Add module to:

My Favorites (?)

'My Favorites' is a special kind of lens which you can use to bookmark modules and collections directly in Connexions. 'My Favorites' can only be seen by you, and collections saved in 'My Favorites' can remember the last module you were on. You need a Connexions account to use 'My Favorites'.

| A lens (?)

Definition of a lens

Lenses

A lens is a custom view of Connexions content. You can think of it as a fancy kind of list that will let you see Connexions through the eyes of organizations and people you trust.

What is in a lens?

Lens makers point to Connexions materials (modules and collections), creating a guide that includes their own comments and descriptive tags about the content.

Who can create a lens?

Any individual Connexions member, a community, or a respected organization.

What are tags? tag icon

Tags are descriptors added by lens makers to help label content, attaching a vocabulary that is meaningful in the context of the lens.

| External bookmarks