11Apr2016

Thevenins Theorem applicated to humansPosted by Prabhash

In our community we are lucky to have senior engineers who nicely accept to send us articles about technical topics or their career story. Last day, Muhammad (20 years experience) did and we were surprised by the title of his article…

It strongly raised our interest and we're sure it will raise yours too! So what is the Thevenin's equivalent to humans? Let's Muhammad give us the answer right now:

Of course, my dear readers, you have studied, and even used, what is commonly (and incorrectly?) known as the Thevenin’s Theorem. One cannot become an electrical engineer, or even pass a Circuit Analysis course without having studied it. It is such a simple concept, and so beautiful that I cannot help writing about it knowing very well that a lot has already been written on it by people much more learned.

Unfortunately, most engineers never give it (the theorem) the honor it deserves. A theorem is honored not by speaking or writing about it, but by utilizing it. Having taught electrical engineering for many decades I admit most electrical engineers do not realize the full potential of the theorem.

Thevenin's Theorem Recap

The theorem was originally stated for purely resistive circuits as per need of that time (in the nineteenth century). In simple words it says that a complicated electrical circuit (or part of it) behind a pair of terminals (or port) can be replaced by an equivalent circuit consisting of only a resistor in series with a voltage source.

The equivalent source has voltage equal to the ‘open circuit’ or ‘no load’ voltage of the original circuit at the same terminals. The equivalent resistor is equal in magnitude to the effective resistance ‘seen’ behind the same terminals when all energy sources have been deactivated.

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