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Nodal Analysis

Nodal analysis is a method for analyzing electric circuits using Kirchhoff's current law. It involves writing equations at each node where circuit elements connect that specify the sum of currents entering and leaving the node must equal zero. This allows the node voltages to be determined in terms of branch currents. Nodal analysis produces a compact set of equations that can be solved to find the voltages throughout the circuit.

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47 views4 pages

Nodal Analysis

Nodal analysis is a method for analyzing electric circuits using Kirchhoff's current law. It involves writing equations at each node where circuit elements connect that specify the sum of currents entering and leaving the node must equal zero. This allows the node voltages to be determined in terms of branch currents. Nodal analysis produces a compact set of equations that can be solved to find the voltages throughout the circuit.

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Nodal analysis

In electric circuits analysis, nodal analysis, node-voltage analysis, or


the branch current method is a method of determining the voltage
(potential difference) between "nodes" (points where elements or
branches connect) in an electrical circuit in terms of the branch currents.

Nodal analysis is essentially a systematic application of Kirchhoff's


current law (KCL) for circuit analysis. Similarly, mesh analysis is a
systematic application of Kirchhoff's voltage law (KVL). Nodal
analysis writes an equation at each electrical node specifying that the
branch currents incident at a node must sum to zero (this is just KCL).
The branch currents are written in terms of the circuit node voltages. As
a consequence, each branch constitutive relation must give current as a Kirchhoff's current law is the
function of voltage; an admittance representation. For instance, for a basis of nodal analysis.
resistor, Ibranch = Vbranch * G, where G (=1/R) is the admittance
(conductance) of the resistor.

Nodal analysis is possible when all the circuit elements' branch constitutive relations have an admittance
representation. Nodal analysis produces a compact set of equations for the network, which can be solved by
hand if small, or can be quickly solved using linear algebra by computer. Because of the compact system of
equations, many circuit simulation programs (e.g., SPICE) use nodal analysis as a basis. When elements do
not have admittance representations, a more general extension of nodal analysis, modified nodal analysis,
can be used.

Procedure
1. Note all connected wire segments in the circuit. These are the nodes of nodal analysis.
2. Select one node as the ground reference. The choice does not affect the element voltages
(but it does affect the nodal voltages) and is just a matter of convention. Choosing the node
with the most connections can simplify the analysis. For a circuit of N nodes the number of
nodal equations is N−1.
3. Assign a variable for each node whose voltage is unknown. If the voltage is already known,
it is not necessary to assign a variable.
4. For each unknown voltage, form an equation based on Kirchhoff's Current Law (i.e. add
together all currents leaving from the node and mark the sum equal to zero). The current
between two nodes is equal to the voltage of the node where the current exits minus the
voltage of the node where the current enters the node, both divided by the resistance
between the two nodes.
5. If there are voltage sources between two unknown voltages, join the two nodes as a
supernode. The currents of the two nodes are combined in a single equation, and a new
equation for the voltages is formed.
6. Solve the system of simultaneous equations for each unknown voltage.

Examples

Basic case

The only unknown voltage in this circuit is . There are


three connections to this node and consequently three
currents to consider. The direction of the currents in
calculations is chosen to be away from the node.

1. Current through resistor :


2. Current through resistor : Basic example circuit with one unknown
voltage, V1.
3. Current through current source :

With Kirchhoff's current law, we get:

This equation can be solved with respect to V1 :

Finally, the unknown voltage can be solved by substituting numerical values for the symbols. Any
unknown currents are easy to calculate after all the voltages in the circuit are known.

Supernodes

In this circuit, we initially have two unknown voltages, V1 and V2 . The voltage at V3 is already known to
be VB because the other terminal of the voltage source is at ground potential.
The current going through voltage source VA cannot be directly
calculated. Therefore, we cannot write the current equations for either V1
or V2 . However, we know that the same current leaving node V2 must
enter node V1 . Even though the nodes cannot be individually solved, we
know that the combined current of these two nodes is zero. This
combining of the two nodes is called the supernode technique, and it
requires one additional equation: V1 = V2 + VA.

The complete set of equations for this circuit is:

In this circuit, VA is between


two unknown voltages, and is
therefore a supernode.

By substituting

Matrix form for the node-voltage equation


In general, for a circuit with nodes, the node-voltage equations obtained by nodal analysis can be written
in a matrix form as derived in the following. For any node , KCL states where
is the negative of the sum of the conductances between nodes and , and is the voltage of
node . This implies
where is the
sum of conductances connected to node . We note that the first term contributes linearly to the node via
, while the second term contributes linearly to each node connected to the node via with a
minus sign. If an independent current source/input is also attached to node , the above expression is
generalized to . It is readily shown that one can combine the above node-
voltage equations for all nodes, and write them down in the following matrix form

or simply

The matrix on the left hand side of the equation is singular since it satisfies where is an
column matrix containing only 1s. This corresponds to the fact of current conservation, namely,
, and the freedom to choose a reference node (ground). In practice, the voltage at the reference
node is taken to be 0. Consider it is the last node, . In this case, it is straightforward to verify that the
resulting equations for the other nodes remain the same, and therefore one can simply discard the
last column as well as the last line of the matrix equation. This procedure results in a
dimensional non-singular matrix equation with the definitions of all the elements stay unchanged.

See also
Mesh analysis
Ybus matrix
Topology (electrical circuits)
Charge conservation
Circuit diagram

References
P. Dimo Nodal Analysis of Power Systems Abacus Press Kent 1975

External links
Branch current method (http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_10/2.html)
Online four-node problem solver (http://www.catc.ac.ir/mazlumi/node.php)
Simple Nodal Analysis Example (http://jeffreyfreeman.me/nodal-analysis-tutorial/)

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