KPR Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil

11-Jun-22 1
Nadu, India
 BASIC PARAMETERS OF ELECTRIC CIRCUITS

• Current (I) Electrons

Current

• Voltage (V) - Voltage is a measure of the potential energy that causes a

current to flow through a transducer in a circuit

Voltage is always measured as a difference with respect to an arbitrary

common point called ground

Voltage is also known as electromotive force or EMF outside engineering

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 Active Elements
An Electric circuit consists of following types of elements

Active elements:
Active elements are the elements of a circuit which possess energy of their own
and can impart it to other element of the circuit.

Active elements are of two types

a) Voltage source
b) Current source

A Voltage source has a specified voltage across its terminals, independent of

current flowing through it. A current source has a specified current through it
independent of the voltage appearing across it
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 A Circuit
Current flows from the higher voltage terminal of the source into the
higher voltage terminal of the transducer before returning to the source

+ Transducer -
Voltage
+

Source
Voltage

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 AC and DC Sources

Alternating current (AC)

Alternating current describes the flow of charge that changes

direction periodically. As a result, the voltage level also reverses
along with the current. AC is used to deliver power to houses, office
buildings, etc.

Direct Current (DC)

Direct current is a bit easier to understand than alternating current.

Rather than oscillating back and forth, DC provides a constant
voltage or current.

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 Passive Elements
A passive component is an electronic component which can only receive energy, which it can either dissipate, absorb
or store it in an electric field or a magnetic field. Passive elements do not need any form of electrical power to
operate.

Common examples of passive components include:

Resistors, Inductors and Capacitors

Resistor:
A resistor is taken as a passive element since it can not deliver any energy to a circuit. Instead resistors can only
receive energy which they can dissipate as heat as long as current flows through it.

Inductors:
An inductor can store energy in it as a magnetic field, and can deliver that energy to the circuit, but not in continuous
basis. The energy absorbing and delivering capacity of an inductor is limited and transient in nature. That is why an
inductor is taken as a passive element of a circuit.

Capacitors: A capacitor is considered as a passive element because it can store energy in it as electric field. The
energy dealing capacity of a capacitor is limited and transient – it is not actually supplying energy, it is storing it for
later use.
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 Ohm’s Law
At constant temperature, the current through an ideal resistor is directly proportional to the
voltage applied across the resistor.

Why the temperature is kept constant in Ohm’s law

The main criteria for Ohm’s law is to keep the resistance constant because proportionality
constant in the relationship is resistance R. But we know that the variation of temperature
affects the value of resistance so to keep the resistance constant during experiments of Ohm’s
law the temperature is considered constant.

Limitations

Ohm’s law is not applicable for unilateral electrical elements like diodes and transistors as they
allow the current to flow through in one direction only.

For non-linear electrical elements with parameters like capacitance, resistance etc the voltage
and current won’t be constant with respect to time making it difficult to use Ohm’s law.

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 Interface Temperature Sensors

The four most common types of temperature sensors, ranging in responsiveness and
accuracy from high to low are:

• Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) Thermistors

• Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTDs)
• Thermocouples
• Semiconductor-Based Sensors

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 Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) thermistor

• A thermistor is a thermally sensitive resistor that exhibits a continuous, small, incremental

change in resistance correlated to variations in temperature.
• An NTC thermistor provides higher resistance at low temperatures. As temperature
increases, the resistance drops incrementally, according to its R-T table. Small changes
reflect accurately due to large changes in resistance per °C.
• The output of an NTC thermistor is non-linear due to its exponential nature; however, it
can be linearized based on its application.
• The effective operating range is -50 to 250 °C for glass encapsulated thermistors or 150°C
for standard thermistors.

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 Resistance Temperature Detector (RTD)
• A resistance temperature detector, or RTD, changes the resistance of the RTD
element with temperature. An RTD consists of a film or, for greater accuracy, a
wire wrapped around a ceramic or glass core.
• Platinum makes up the most accurate RTDs while nickel and copper make RTDs
that are lower cost; however, nickel and copper are not as stable or repeatable as
platinum.
• Platinum RTDs offer a highly accurate linear output across -200 to 600 °C but are
much more expensive than copper or nickel.

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 Thermocouples
• A thermocouple consists of two wires of different metals electrically bonded at two
points.
• The varying voltage created between these two dissimilar metals reflects proportional
changes in temperature.
• Thermocouples are nonlinear and require a conversion with a table when used for
temperature control and compensation, typically accomplished using a lookup table.
• Accuracy is low, from 0.5 °C to 5 °C but thermocouples operate across the widest
temperature range, from -200 °C to 1750 °C.

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 Semiconductor-based temperature sensors
• A semiconductor-based temperature sensor is usually incorporated into integrated
circuits (ICs).
• These sensors utilize two identical diodes with temperature-sensitive voltage vs current
characteristics that are used to monitor changes in temperature.
• They offer a linear response but have the lowest accuracy of the basic sensor types.
• These temperature sensors also have the slowest responsiveness across the narrowest
temperature range (-70 °C to 150 °C).

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