EEE121

Electric Circuit Analysis-I

Online Lecture 04-Methods of Analysis

By
M. Asghar Khan
Lecturer
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Abbottabad Campus

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Contents

• Nodal Analysis (along with overview of Cramer’s rule)

• Related Problems

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Methods of Analysis

• Having understood the fundamental laws of circuit theory (Ohm’s law

and Kirchhoff’s laws), we are now prepared to apply these laws to
develop two powerful techniques for circuit analysis:

• Nodal analysis (which is based on a systematic application of

Kirchhoff’s current law (KCL)), and

• Mesh analysis (which is based on a systematic application of

Kirchhoff’s voltage law (KVL))

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Methods of Analysis

• With the two techniques to be developed in this chapter, we can

analyze any linear circuit by obtaining a set of simultaneous equations
• That are then solved to obtain the required values of current or voltage
• One method of solving simultaneous equations involves Cramer’s rule
(Appendix A-Simultaneous Equations and Matrix Inversion), which
allows us to calculate circuit variables as a quotient of determinants
• Another method of solving simultaneous equations is to use
MATLAB, a computer software

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Simultaneous Equations and Matrix Inversion

•  In circuit analysis, we often encounter a set of simultaneous equations

having the form

• Where there are unknown ,…, to be determined

• Equation (A.1) can be written in matrix form as

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Simultaneous Equations and Matrix Inversion

• This
  matrix equation can be put in a compact form as

• Where

• A is a square matrix while X and B are column matrices

• There are several methods for solving Eq. (A.1) or (A.3)
• These include substitution, Gaussian elimination, Cramer’s rule, matrix
inversion, and numerical analysis
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Cramer’s Rule

•  In many cases, Cramer’s rule can be used to solve the simultaneous
equations we encounter in circuit analysis
• Cramer’s rule states that the solution to Eq. (A.1) or (A.3) is
• Where the ’s are the determinants given by

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Cramer’s Rule

•  Notice that is the determinant of matrix A and is the determinant of the

matrix formed by replacing the kth column of A by B
• It is evident from Eq. (A.5) that Cramer’s rule applies only when
• When the set of equations has no unique solution, because the
equations are linearly dependent
• The value of the determinant , for example, can be obtained by
expanding along the first row:

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Cramer’s Rule

•  Where the minor is an determinant of the matrix formed by striking

out the ith row and jth column
• The value of may also be obtained by expanding along the first
column:
• We now specifically develop the formulas for calculating the
determinants of and matrices, because of their frequent occurrence
in this text
• For a matrix,

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Cramer’s Rule

•  For a matrix,
• An alternative method of
obtaining the determinant
of a matrix is by repeating
the first two the first two
rows and multiplying the terms
diagonally as follows

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Cramer’s Rule

• In summary:

• You may not find much need to use Cramer’s method described in this
appendix
• But in case you need to solve the equations by hand, the material covered in
this appendix becomes useful
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Nodal Analysis

• Nodal analysis provides a general procedure for analyzing circuits using

node voltages as the circuit variables
• Choosing node voltages instead of element voltages as circuit variables
is convenient and reduces the number of equations one must solve
simultaneously
• To simplify matters, we shall assume in this section that circuits do not
contain voltage sources
• Circuits that contain voltage sources will be analyzed in the next section
• We are interested in finding the node voltages

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Nodal Analysis

• Given a circuit with n nodes without voltage sources, the nodal analysis of the
circuit involves taking the following three steps

• We shall now explain and apply these three steps

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Nodal Analysis

• The first step in nodal analysis is selecting a node as the reference or

datum node
• The reference node is commonly called the ground since it is assumed
to have zero potential
• A reference node is indicated by any of the three symbols in the Fig.
• We shall always use the symbol in Fig. 3.1(b)
• Once we have selected a reference node, we
assign voltage designations to nonreference
nodes

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Nodal Analysis

•  Node 0 is the reference node while nodes 1 and 2 are

assigned voltages and respectively
• Keep in mind that the node voltages are defined with
respect to the reference node
• As illustrated in Fig. (a), each node voltage is the
voltage rise from the reference node to the corresponding nonreference
node or simply the voltage of that node with respect to the reference
node
• As the second step, we apply KCL to each nonreference node in the
circuit
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Nodal Analysis

• To
  avoid putting too much information on the same circuit, the circuit in
previous Fig. (a) is redrawn in Fig. (b), where we now add , , and as the
currents through resistors , , and respectively.
• At node 1, applying KCL gives
• At node 2,
• We now apply Ohm’s law to express the unknown
currents , , and in terms of node voltages
• Since resistance is a passive element, by the passive sign
convention
• We can express this principle as
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Nodal Analysis

• With this in mind, we obtain from Fig. (b),

• Substituting Eq. (3.4) in Eqs. (3.1) and (3.2) results,
respectively, in
• In terms of the conductances, these
Eqs. become

• The third step in nodal analysis is to solve for the node voltages
• If we apply KCL to nonreference nodes, we obtain simultaneous
equations such as Eqs. (3.5) and (3.6) or (3.7) and (3.8)

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Nodal Analysis

• We
  solve Eqs. (3.5) and (3.6) or (3.7) and (3.8) to obtain the node voltages and
using Cramer’s rule
• One must cast the simultaneous equations in matrix form
• For example, Eqs. (3.7) and (3.8) can be cast in matrix form as

• Which can be solved to get and

• Equation 3.9 will be generalized in Section 3.6
• The simultaneous equations may also be solved using calculators or with
software packages such as MATLAB, Mathcad, etc.
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Examples and Related Circuit Problems
• Try Exp. 3.1 and 3.2 and PP. 3.1 and 3.2
• Also solve Exp. A.1 and A.2 along with PP. A.1 and A.2 in Appendix A.1

Book Followed
• Fundamentals of Electric Circuits (Fifth Edition) By Charles K. Alexander and
Matthew n. o. Sadiku

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 Thank you all for attention!

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