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Complex numbers are used to represent sinusoidal voltages and currents in electric circuits as rotating vectors. This allows calculations like summing voltages, multiplying currents by impedances, and taking derivatives and integrals to be greatly simplified compared to using long mathematical operations. Voltages in AC circuits oscillate sinusoidally over time and can be represented as phasors, where the voltage magnitude and phase angle form a vector that rotates at the frequency of the waveform. Using phasor representations, calculations like summing voltages are straightforward by adding the corresponding phasor vectors.

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50 views1 page

Explain

Complex numbers are used to represent sinusoidal voltages and currents in electric circuits as rotating vectors. This allows calculations like summing voltages, multiplying currents by impedances, and taking derivatives and integrals to be greatly simplified compared to using long mathematical operations. Voltages in AC circuits oscillate sinusoidally over time and can be represented as phasors, where the voltage magnitude and phase angle form a vector that rotates at the frequency of the waveform. Using phasor representations, calculations like summing voltages are straightforward by adding the corresponding phasor vectors.

Uploaded by

Shiba Tatsuya
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Explain or illustrate the use of complex numbers in electric circuits

Sinusoids in AC are represented as rotating vectors on the polar plane, and it can be represented by
complex numbers to calculate voltages, currents and impedances. Long and tedious mathematical
operations like summation of two voltages, product of current and impedance, derivatives or integrals of
current or voltages are much simplified, with this maneuver.
Complex notation is used mostly in AC circuits to denote the electrical quantities like voltages at
different nodes and current through various branches.
The voltages in AC circuits are alternating in nature and nearly sinusoidal.
v(t)=Vcos(2πf0t+θ)v(t)=Vcos(2πf0t+θ)
A voltage may be represented by a vector centered at origin, with its length equal to the magnitude of
the voltage and making an angle with +ve x-axis equal to the phase of the voltage.
v(t)=V∠θv(t)=V∠θ
To account for the frequency of the voltage waveform, let us start to rotate it in anti-clockwise direction
at a frequency ω. What we get is similar to this:

This representation of sinusoidal quantities is known as phasor.


Now what is so great about these phasors, let us find out:
Consider two voltages which are alternating in nature:
v1(t)=V1cos(2πf0t+θ1)v1(t)=V1cos(2πf0t+θ1)
v2(t)=V2cos(2πf0t+θ2)v2(t)=V2cos(2πf0t+θ2)
To find out the sum of these voltages, we can do this:
The best thing of all is that all the real circuit analysis work with phasors and complex impedances.
Also with phasors, finding derivative or integral is also easy. Since we're speaking of sines and cosines all
at the same frequency it's only a matter of phase shift following proper sign convention.

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