Category: electricity

Fundamentals Of Electric Circuits

Some basic nomenclature and information on electric circuits.

When we think of an electric circuit, the first thing that comes to mind is a bunch of electric and electronic components put together to make a device that provides a certain functionality.

This is totally right, of course, but it is not a precise definition of an electric circuit. In fact, circuits can be defined in different ways, depending on the particular aspect of them that we want to highlight.

If we want to define a circuit with respect to the wave length of the voltage and current that the circuit handles, we will distinguish between “lumped” and “distributed” circuits.

If instead we want to highlight the kind of electric or electronic components the circuit is made of, then we need to talk about linear and non-linear circuits.

And, finally, depending on the temporal stability of the components, we can talk about “time-invariant” and “time-variant” circuits.

And, of course, we can consider combinations of the properties and, therefore, combinations of different circuit types.

In this article, I will go through the above list of circuit types and provide a proper definition and description of each one of them. Combination of those types will lead to combined definitions and descriptions of the basic types. However, in this context, I will go through only the basic types of circuit, leaving to you the task to provide definitions and descriptions of the combinations.

Lumped and Distributed Circuits

Let’s go now into more details about these kind of circuits. What differentiates these circuits is the size of their components compared to the size of the wavelength of the electric current flowing through them. Hum, well, I guess we need to back up a little bit first. Let’s start with the types of current.

We have two kind of currents: the direct current, or DC, and the alternate current, or AC. DC current always flows in the same direction and never changes. AC current has usually the shape of a sine wave, or some other shape that periodically inverts the direction of the current. The number of times the current inverts its flow depends on the number of times the voltage flips its polarity. When the Voltage goes from positive to negative n number of times in a second, we say that its frequency is n and it is measured in Hertz.

Since the flow of the current in a conductor is not instantaneous, it makes sense to think that a change in the voltage at the ends of a conductor makes the current change progressively through the conductor. And if the voltage keeps changing back and forth, so does the current. At the end, both the instantaneous values of the current and the voltage across the length of the conductor follow in space the same shape of the voltage changes (in time) applied at the ends of the conductor. So, if the voltage changes in time like a sine wave at the ends of the conductor, it will follow a similar shape in space throughout the length of the conductor. The length of such a sine wave in space throughout the conductor is called wavelength of the voltage, or the current. Such length in space depends on the length in time of the corresponding voltage applied at the ends of the conductor.

We can calculate the wavelength using the following formula:

The Greek letter “lambda” represents the wavelength, the f represents the frequency of the voltage, which is how many times the voltage goes from positive to negative and back in one second. And, finally, the letter ‘c’ represents the speed of light. Yes, you got it right, it is the speed of light!

When the wavelength is much longer than the physical size of the components of the circuit, we say that it is a lumped circuit, because the components are just small lumps with respect to the wavelength itself. In such a case voltage and current are practically constant across the whole length of the component.

When the wavelength is comparable with the physical size of the components of the circuit, we say that it is a distributed circuit, because the components are so big compared with the size of the wavelength that the wave itself is distributed across them. In such a case voltage and current will be different in different sections of the component, at any instant in time.

Distributed circuits cannot be analyzed with normal algebra equations. For those, it is necessary to heavily use calculus. Example of such circuits are the microwave circuits, those used to deal with radars and satellite signals.

Linear and Non-Linear Circuits

A component is defined as linear if it can be represented in a I-V (current-voltage) diagram with a straight line.

A component is defined as not linear if its representation on a I-V diagram is not a straight line.

Simply put, a linear circuit is one made with only linear components, while a non-linear circuit is one that has at least one non-linear component.

Note the difference: for a circuit to be linear, ALL the components must be linear; for a circuit to be non-linear, it is enough that ONLY ONE component is non-linear. All the other components can be linear and still the whole circuit is non linear.

Time-Invariant and Time-Variant Circuits

Difference between time-invariant and time-variant circuits is also straightforward.

A time-invariant component is one for which the measurements that define it never change over time.

A time-variant component is one for which the measurements that define it can change over time.

As a result, a time-invariant circuit is one made only with time-invariant components. A time-variant circuit is one made with at least one time-variant component. This is a subtle definition, very similar in its form to the one for linear and non-linear circuits.

Circuits in Series and in Parallel

One last thing I would like to discuss about circuits in general is related on their topology or, in other words, on how the components in a circuit are connected to each other.

There are two main configurations of connected components:

  1. components in series
  2. components in parallel

Components are said to be connected in series when they are traversed by the same current.

Components are said to be connected in parallel when the voltage on each one of them is the same.

When we talk about connections in series and in parallel, of course, we refer to components directly attached to one another, at least on one terminal, or lead. Components that are far away in the circuit diagram, or that are not directly connected together cannot be defined as in series or in parallel.

So, now, can you tell me what kind of circuit is the one at the very beginning of this article? Put your answer in the comments and let’s see who gets it right.

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A Few Words On DC And AC: What Exactly Are They?

A few disorganized concepts about direct and alternate current.

There are two main variations of the electrical current: the Direct Current, or DC, and the Alternate Current, or AC. But what does that mean?

The DC is the one you obtain when you power a device using batteries, for example. Batteries provide what is called Direct Voltage and that generates a Direct Current once applied to an electric circuit. If we draw a diagram of the voltage and, correspondingly, the current that flows in a circuit powered with DC, here is what we obtain:

This diagram basically tells us that the value of the voltage, and of the current, does not change over time. We usually define the current as flowing from the positive to the negative pole of the battery and that flow never changes over time.

The AC works like the DC, going from the positive to the negative voltage. The difference is that the voltage keeps switching: positive becomes negative and then becomes positive again, and so forth. And so the current keeps changing its direction accordingly.

Also, the AC does not change suddenly back and forth, but it does that progressively, following a shape called sine wave. All electrical energy distributed in our homes has this shape.

In USA, the AC current changes direction 120 times per second, which means that in one second there are 60 full periods of the sine wave. We say that the frequency of the current is 60 Hertz, abbreviated 60 Hz.

In Europe, 50 Hz is used instead. Other parts of the world either use one or the other.

The AC voltage is the one created in the power plants and provided, for example, at the wall outlets in your house by the energy service provider.

The voltage at the outlet is not constant as the one in the batteries. Instead, it changes continuously following the shape of a sine wave. Because of that, the polarity at each electrode of the outlet changes over time from positive to negative and vice versa, following the shape of the sine wave.

So, when we connect a device to the electric outlet, the current that will flow through that device will be an AC current as well.

The sinusoidal shape of the AC voltage depends on the way the electricity is generated. In the power plants, there are devices called alternators, a much bigger version of those that you can find inside your car to recharge its battery, or on a bike, to provide electricity to turn on the lights at night.

Depending on the power plant, a different kind of energy is used to put in motion the alternator. It could be fossil fuel or nuclear energy that heat a reservoir of water and create the steam that makes the alternator rotate. Or it could be the rotation of a propeller-like device that is put in motion by the wind.

Whatever is the source of the mechanical energy, the alternator converts that energy in electrical energy. But, since the rotation translates into a sine wave when described on a Cartesian reference system, the resulting electrical energy acquires that shape too.

But, why do we need both forms of voltage, DC and AC?

First of all, DC voltage is necessary to power up any electronic device, from your TV to your smartphone or radio or computer.

AC voltage, from the electrical engineering perspective, is used to transmit the electrical energy from the places where it is created to the places where it is used.

Back to the time where the first experiments of electricity transmission were conducted, there was a famous diatribe between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla.

Edison believed that the safest way to transmit electricity was to do that with cables powered with DC current.

Tesla argued that it was better to use AC current because it allowed much less waste of energy during the transportation, thanks to the fact that it is easier to convert the voltage from a low value to a higher one and vice versa, when using AC. And it is also very simple to convert the AC into DC when DC is needed, through a process called rectification.

As history tells us, Tesla won that battle, rightfully. And so, today, AC is used to bring the electrical energy to our homes from the power plants.

A Few Facts On Coulomb’s Law

A few words on the modern interpretation of Coulomb’s Law in terms of Fields Theory.

At the base of all the electromagnetism theory lays Coulomb’s Law, which describes why and how charges move in a medium, whether the medium is a conductor or the void.

Electrical and Electronics engineers are therefore supposed to be very familiar with this law. Let’s spend some time to provide a few important facts of the law. For that, we have to go back to the concept of ‘field’.

In modern physics, we usually tend to identify the effect of an entity over another entity with the name of field. Mathematically speaking, a field is a 3-dimensional matrix that assigns a specific value, usually a vector, to each point in the observed space.

Each time we put in that space an object capable of reacting with the field, we end up with a force applied to that object that is the product of the field in that point and the measurable value of that object.

So, in the case of charges, a single charge creates a field in the surrounding space. When we put in that space a second charge, the new charge will be subject to a force that is the product of the charge itself and the value of the field in that point in space.

Because charges can repel or attract, depending on their positive or negative sign, the field itself is directional, and therefore represented with vectors..

Here is a picture representing a field generated by a positive charge:

And here is a picture representing a field generated by a negative charge:

If the charge creating the field is Q, then the field can be represented by the following equation:

where E is the value of the field, actually the module of the field vector, and r is the distance from the charge of a point in space where the field is calculated. The constant ε0 is called “dielectric constant” and, in this formula, it assumes that the charge is located in the void or in thin air. An adjustment to the constant needs to be made when the medium is different.

We call this field an Electrostatic field, hence the E, because the charge that generates it does not move, it is static.

The force on a charge q put in the field can be calculated as:

And, since E is actually a vector, F is therefore also a vector.

If we want to represent this in actual vector format, we can write it as:

where

is the position vector of the charge q with respect to the charge Q. This is what is called Coulomb’s Law.

You can see that if the charges are both positive or both negative, the vector F is oriented such that the charge q moves away from the charge Q and, vice versa, when the charges have opposite sign, F is oriented toward Q.

That is exactly what we expected: charges of the same sign repel each other and charges of opposite sign attract each other.

As a further example, here is the graphical representation of an electrostatic field generated by two charges of opposite sign:

… and finally an electrostatic field generated by two charges of the same sign:

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