Electrical element

Electrical elements are conceptual abstractions representing idealized electrical components, such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors, used in the analysis of electrical networks. Any electrical network can be analysed as multiple, interconnected electrical elements in a schematic diagram or circuit diagram, each of which affects the voltage in the network or current through the network. These ideal electrical elements represent real, physical electrical or electronic components but they do not exist physically and they are assumed to have ideal properties according to a lumped element model, while components are objects with less than ideal properties, a degree of uncertainty in their values and some degree of nonlinearity, each of which may require a combination of multiple electrical elements in order to approximate its function.

Circuit analysis using electric elements is useful for understanding many practical electrical networks using components. By analyzing the way a network is affected by its individual elements it is possible to estimate how a real network will behave.