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Reference Direction of Current

This document discusses key concepts of electric circuits including: 1) Reference direction of current, which assumes an arbitrary direction as a reference and actual current is either consistent or opposite to this reference. 2) Two methods to represent reference direction of current using arrows or double subscripts. 3) Reference polarity of voltage is also assumed arbitrarily, and actual polarity is either consistent or opposite to this reference polarity.

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19 views

Reference Direction of Current

This document discusses key concepts of electric circuits including: 1) Reference direction of current, which assumes an arbitrary direction as a reference and actual current is either consistent or opposite to this reference. 2) Two methods to represent reference direction of current using arrows or double subscripts. 3) Reference polarity of voltage is also assumed arbitrarily, and actual polarity is either consistent or opposite to this reference polarity.

Uploaded by

anothersomeguy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Basic concepts of electric circuits 21

current directions and the dashed line arrows indicate the actual current
directions.

Reference direction of current


Assuming an arbitrarily chosen direction as the reference direction of
current I:
If I 4 0 the actual current direction is consistent with the reference
current direction.
If I 5 0 the actual current direction is opposite to the reference
current direction.

Figure 1.17 shows two methods to represent the reference direction of


current:
Expressed with an arrow, the direction of the arrow indicates the reference
direction of current.
Expressed with a double subscription, for instance Iab, indicates the
reference direction of current is from point a to b.

I
Iab
R
R

b
(a) (b)

Figure 1.17 Reference direction of current I. (a) Arrow indicates the reference I
direction. (b) Double subscription indicates the reference I
direction

1.6.2 Reference polarity of voltage


Similar to the current reference direction, the voltage reference polarity is also an
assumption of arbitrarily chosen polarity. If the resultant calculation for voltage
across a component is positive (V 4 0), the actual voltage polarity is consistent
with the assumed reference polarity. If the resultant calculation is negative (V 5 0),
the actual voltage polarity is opposite to the assumed reference polarity. As
shown in Figure 1.18, the positive () and negative (7) polarities represent the
reference voltage polarities, and arrows represent the actual voltage polarities.

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