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Mesh

Mesh analysis is a circuit analysis technique similar to nodal analysis. It involves identifying all possible current loops or "meshes" within a circuit. For each mesh and supermesh (meshes that share a current source), Kirchhoff's voltage law can be used to generate equations to solve for the unknown currents. The number of equations needed is reduced by constraint equations for meshes containing current sources. This allows the circuit to be solved using matrix methods.

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67 views2 pages

Mesh

Mesh analysis is a circuit analysis technique similar to nodal analysis. It involves identifying all possible current loops or "meshes" within a circuit. For each mesh and supermesh (meshes that share a current source), Kirchhoff's voltage law can be used to generate equations to solve for the unknown currents. The number of equations needed is reduced by constraint equations for meshes containing current sources. This allows the circuit to be solved using matrix methods.

Uploaded by

mlj8753
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Mesh Analysis

Today we will study Mesh Analysis, an analysis technique which is almost


as robust as Nodal Analysis. The exception is that Mesh Analysis will not
work for circuits which are not entirely in one plane.

Consider the circuit above. There are many possible current loops we
could draw, but the 4 shown involve all the branches and elements. Note that
these currents are not necessarily measurable. The actual current through
R8 involves both I2 and I3 . It should be clear, however, that if we know the
currents that we have drawn then we can calculate the currents through and
the voltages across all branches of the circuit. These 4 loops which enclose
no other loops are called meshes.
If we take this approach, we have 4 unknown currents for loops 1-4, and we
will need 4 independent equations to find these currents. But currents I1 and

1
I2 pass through a common current source, and we can write the constraint
equation I2 − I1 = IS1 . Meshes such as 1 and 2 which share a current source
are called supermeshes. We will see the exact procedure in a minute but we
can use this constraint equation and reduce the number of mesh equations
by one.
Mesh 4 is an even more special case for it’s current is completely deter-
mined by a current source. We therefore get the constraint equation I4 = IS2 .
We will refer to a mesh of this sort as a trivial mesh. So in the end we find
that we only need to find equations for the currents through the mesh 3 and
the supermesh 1, 2. For this class we will refer to mesh 3 as an essential
mesh.
We need 2 equations to solve for these currents and we will use KVL
around each essential mesh and each supermesh to generate these equations.
In addition we will use the convention that we traverse each mesh in the
clockwise direction. We can then write the KVL equations in the form
X X
IR = − Vvoltage sources
clockwise
clockwise

Combined with our constraint equations this generates a series of simul-


taneous equations which are once again best solved using matrix methods.

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