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Parallel Current Dividers

Parallel current dividers have two or more parallel branches for current to flow through, with the same voltage across all components. Current flows through different paths in a parallel circuit, but the voltage is the same across all paths. The total current equals the sum of the branch currents, and each branch current can be calculated using Ohm's law with the common voltage and the branch resistance.

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58 views

Parallel Current Dividers

Parallel current dividers have two or more parallel branches for current to flow through, with the same voltage across all components. Current flows through different paths in a parallel circuit, but the voltage is the same across all paths. The total current equals the sum of the branch currents, and each branch current can be calculated using Ohm's law with the common voltage and the branch resistance.

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اياد النعيمي
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Parallel Current Dividers

Current Divider circuits have two or more parallel branches for currents to flow
through but the voltage is the same for all components in the parallel circuit
Current Divider Circuits are parallel circuits in which the source or
supply current divides into a number of parallel paths. In a parallel
connected circuit, all the components have their terminals connected
together sharing the same two end nodes. This results in different
paths and branches for the current to flow or pass along. However,
the currents can have different values through each component.
The main characteristic of parallel circuits is that while they may
produce different currents flowing through different branches, the
voltage is common to all the connected paths. That is VR1 = VR2 =
VR3 … etc. Therefore the need to find the individual resistor voltages
is eliminated allowing branch currents to be easily found with
Kirchhoff’s Current Law, (KCL) and of course Ohm’s Law.

Resistive Voltage Divider


The easiest to understand, and most basic form of a passive current
divider network is that of two resistors connected together in parallel.
The Current Divider Rule allows us to calculate the current flowing
through each parallel resistive branch as a percentage of the total
current. Consider the circuit below.

Resistive Current Divider Circuit

Here this basic current divider circuit consists of two resistors: R1,


and R2 in parallel which splits the supply or source current IS between
them into two separate currents IR1 and IR2 before joining together
again and returning back to the source.
As the source or total current equals the sum of the individual branch
currents, then the total current, IT flowing in the circuit is given by
Kirchoffs current law KCL as being:
IT = IR1 + IR2
As the two resistors are connected in parallel, for Kirchhoff’s Current
Law, (KCL) to hold true it must therefore follow that the current
flowing through resistor R1 will be equal to:
IR1 = IT – IR2
and the current flowing through resistor R2 will be equal to:
IR2 = IT – IR1
As the same voltage, (V) is present across each resistive element,
we can find the current flowing through each resistor in terms of this
common voltage as it is simply V = I*R following Ohm’s Law. So
solving for the voltage (V) across the parallel combination gives us:

 
Solving for IR1 gives:
 
Likewise, solving for IR2 gives:

 
Notice that the above equations for each branch current has the
opposite resistor in its numerator. That is to solve for I1 we use R2,
and to solve for I2 we use R1. This is because each branch current is
inversely proportional to its resistance resulting in the smaller
resistance having the larger current.

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