back to Homework Help

back to Homework Assignments

back to Home Page

Supplemental Notes and Examples

These handwritten notes are supplemental to the main textbook by Agarwal and Lang. You should work through the examples given and make sure you understand them. All the notes are PDF scanned documents. They can be opened and read using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Supplemental Notes

Topics

1. Voltage, Current and Resistance

(14 pages)

 

Typical electric energy sources
ideal independent voltage source
ideal independent current source
Voltage waveforms
What is voltage?
What is current?
Circuit elements
passive (e.g. resistors, inductors, capacitors)
active (e.g. transistors and diodes)
functional blocks (e.g. amplifiers, logic gates, power supplies)
Resistance and Ohm's Law
what is a resistor?
resistance and resistivity
practical resistors in circuits

2. Ohm's Law, Power Energy, and KVL

(11 pages)

Ohm's Law
voltage / current behavior for a resistor
Power dissipated by a resistor
Resistor connected to an a.c. current source
waveforms for voltage, power, energy
Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL)
several examples with voltage sources and resistors

3. Resistors in Series and Parallel; Voltage and Current Division; Nodal Analysis of Circuits

(14 pages)

Resistors in series
Resistors in parallel
Conductance: the reciprocal of resistance
Voltage division
Current division
Resistive ladder network
Circuit analysis techniques
Kirchhoff's Voltage Law (KVL)
Kirchhoff's Current Law (KCL)
Nodal analysis (based on KCL)
Mesh analysis (based on KVL)
Solving simultaneous equations using matrix methods and Cramer's Rule

4. Mesh Analysis of Circuits; Superposition

(14 pages)

Mesh analysis of circuits
examples
Principle of Superposition
examples

5. Superposition; Thevin and Norton Equivalent Circuits

(18 pages)

Principle of Superposition (cont.)
examples, independent voltage or current sources
examples, dependent sources
Thevenin and Norton Equivalent Circuits
examples

6. Applications of Thevenin's and Norton's Equivalent Circuits; Maximum Power Transfer

(15 pages)

 

Applications of Thevenin's and Norton's Equivalent Circuits
example, graphical solution
example for a non-linear load (p-n diode)
Maximum Power Transfer Theorem
proof; why is it important?
example

7. Review of Matrices

(9 pages)

Definition of a matrix; matrix multiplication
example
Additional matrix definitions
diagonal matrix
identity matrix
transpose matrix
determinant of a square matrix
matrix co-factor
adjoint of a square matrix
inverse of a square matrix
Cramer's Rule
example
8. Solving 2nd-order homogeneous ordinary differential equations (13 pages)
2nd-order homogeneous differential equation
solutions of exponential form
characteristic equation with two roots s1, s2
three cases: overdamped, underdamped, critically damped
Example for overdamped case
Example for underdamped case
Example for critically damped case
9. Complex numbers - a quick primer
Supplemental Notes on Complex Numbers
Rectangular, polar forms of complex numbers
Euler's Identity; Complex conjugate
Arithmetic operations, with examples: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division
Some useful identities
Integer power of a complex number
Roots of a complex number
Sines and Cosines in terms of complex exponentials