Laboratory Exercise No.

4
Nodal Analysis
John Clement Husain, Kayla Millicent Plazo, Mark Allan Antipuesto
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
School of Engineering, University of San Carlos
Nasipit, Talamban Cebu City, Philippines
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—This laboratory activity’s main purpose is to study nodal

analysis and how it is can be applied to find circuit currents and
voltages. Kirchhoff’s Current Law is applied to all nodes to calculate
the different voltages and resistances of the circuit.

Keywords- kirchhoff, resistance, nodes, ground-node , nodal

analysis

I. INTRODUCTION
Nodal analysis is a compliment to mesh analysis and, as the
name implies, this analysis makes use of nodal equations of
Kirchhoff’s Law to find the voltages around a given circuit.
Kirchhoff's first law, also known as the Kirchhoff's current law,
postulates that at any junction in a circuit, the sum of the currents
arriving at the junction is equal to the sum of the currents leaving Figure 2
the same junction [1]. There are n number of nodes, but the
number of nodal equations to be used is n – 1. When the voltages
II. PROCEDURE
are put together, their net result will equal zero. This concept
will be the basis to finding the potentials of each component of 1. Consider the dual supply circuit of Figure 1 using E1 = 10
the circuit. volts, E2 = 15 volts, R1 = 4.7 k, R2 = 6.8 k, and R3 = 10 k.

2. Write the node equation for the circuit of Figure 1 and solve
𝐼1 + 𝐼2 = 𝐼3 + 𝐼4 Equation (1) for node voltage A. Also, determine the current through R3.
Record these values in Table 1.

𝐼1 + 𝐼2 − 𝐼3 − 𝐼4 = 0 Equation (2) 3. Construct the circuit of Figure 1 using the values specified in
step one. Measure the voltage from node A to ground along with
the current though R3. Record these values in Table 1. Also
This laboratory activity will be using the following determine and record the deviations.
schematics:
. 4. Consider the dual supply circuit of Figure 2 using E1 = 10
volts, E2 = 15 volts, R1 = 4.7 k, R2 = 6.8 k, R3 = 10 k, R4 = 22
k, and R5 = 33 k.

5. Write the node equations for the circuit of Figure 2 and solve
for node voltage A, node voltage B and the potential from A to
B. Also, determine the current through R4. Record these values
in Table 2.

6. Construct the circuit of Figure 2 using the values specified in

step four. Measure the voltages from node A to ground, node B
to ground and from node A to B, along with the current though
R4. Record these values in Table 2. Also determine and
Figure 1 record the deviations.
 III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS the node voltages if the positions of E1 and R1 in Figure
1 were swapped?
Table 1: Results from Fig. 1
Parameter Theory Experimental Deviation Connection to a ground is not a requirement when doing
nodal analysis. Nodal analysis requires a node to
VA 9.42V 9.42 V 0 become a reference node, which is why you have n – 1
IR3 -0.94V -0.94mA 0 number of equations when doing this analysis. If the 2
were swapped, the voltage at VA would stay the same
but the current at IR3 would become positive.
Table 2: Results from Fig. 2
Parameter Theory Experimental Deviation 3. The circuits of Figures 13.1 and 13.2 had been analyzed
VA 7.3869 V 7.387 V 0 previously in the Superposition Theorem exercise. How
VB 11.406 V 11.41 V 0 do the results of this exercise compare to the earlier
VAB 3.96 V 3.96 V 0 results? Should the resulting currents and voltages be
IR4 .18mA .18mA 0 identical? If not, what sort of things might affect the
outcome?
Equations for Theoretical Results
The results of the two exercises are the same as they
10−𝑉𝐴 𝑉𝐴 −15 𝑉𝐴
− − =0 Eq (3) should be. The Superposition Theorem gets the same
4.7 6.8 10
values for the voltages and current but takes a little
longer as you must find V and I using one source at a
10−𝑉𝐴 𝑉𝐴 𝑉𝐴 −𝑉𝐵 time.
− − =0 Eq (4)
4.7 10 22

𝑉𝐴 −𝑉𝐵 𝑉𝐵 15−𝑉𝐵
− + =0 Eq (5)
4.7 33 6.8

After looking at the tables, you can see that there weren’t any
deviations from the theoretical results or the experimental
results. This proves that KCL is accurate if it were to be used to
find a circuit’s voltage or current. There is a slight difference in
results in Table 2, however that is due to the program being set
to round in certain decimal places.

As for the theoretical calculations, I had used the KCL to

determine which currents should be negative and which should
be positive. Substituting the currents I according to Ohm’s Law,
which becomes I = V/R [2]. Equation (3) was used in to
calculate for Figure 1, while Equation (4) and (5) were utilized
for calculations for Figure 2. Figure 3: Schematic of Fig. 1 using LTSpice

1. Do the polarities of the sources in Figure 1 matter as to

the resulting voltages? Will the magnitudes of the
voltages be the same if one or both sources have an
inverted polarity?

The polarities in the case of Fig. 1 do matter because it

would change the flow of electricity. Through
experimentation, we found that in Fig. 1, the resulting
voltage at VA was different if you were to invert the
polarity of E2, showing that the magnitudes of the
voltages would change if the polarities of the sources
were to be changed at all.

2. In both circuits of this exercise the negative terminals of

the sources are connected to ground. Is this a
requirement for nodal analysis? What would happen to Figure 4: Schematic of Fig. 2 using LTSpice
 IV. CONCLUSION
This laboratory exercise was a way to visualize and
dive deeper into the applications of nodal analysis in real
circuitry. Utilizing current knowledge, outside sources, and
applications to virtually simulate the circuits, we were able
to investigate the usage and effectiveness of nodal analysis.
To summarize, nodal analysis is an application of
Kirchhoff’s First Law, also known as Kirchhoff’s Current
Law, to circuitry in order to find the voltage/current values
of certain components without having to physically simulate
a circuit. This activity showed that using nodal analysis is
very accurate when it comes to calculations and that the
results were very close to the actual results of
experimentation.
V. REFERENCES
[1] Magno, Urbano. Introductory Electrical Engineering with Math
Explained in Accessible Language. Wiley., 202

[2] Tenny, Kevin M. “Ohms Law.” StatPearls [Internet]., U.S. National

Library of Medicine, 2 June 2021,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441875/.