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Concept
Nodal analysis
Summary
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.
In analyzing a circuit using Kirchhoff's circuit laws, one can either do nodal analysis using Kirchhoff's current law (KCL) or mesh analysis using Kirchhoff's voltage law (KVL). Nodal analysis writes an equation at each electrical node, requiring that the branch currents incident at a node must sum to zero. The branch currents are written in terms of the circuit node voltages. As a consequence, each branch constitutive relation must give current as a function of voltage; an admittance representation. For instance, for a 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.
Note all connected wire segments in the circuit. These are the nodes of nodal analysis.
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.
Assign a variable for each node whose voltage is unknown. If the voltage is already known, it is not necessary to assign a variable.
For each unknown voltage, form an equation based on Kirchhoff's Current Law (i.
Official source
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