Mesh analysis

"Loop current" redirects here. For the ocean current in the Gulf of Mexico, see Loop Current. For the electrical signalling scheme, see current loop.
Figure 1: Essential meshes of the planar circuit labeled 1, 2, and 3. R1, R2, R3, 1/sC, and sL represent the impedance of the resistors, capacitor, and inductor values in the s-domain. Vs and Is are the values of the voltage source and current source, respectively.

Mesh analysis (or the mesh current method) is a circuit analysis method for planar circuits. Planar circuits are circuits that can be drawn on a plane surface with no wires crossing each other. A more general technique, called loop analysis (with the corresponding network variables called loop currents) can be applied to any circuit, planar or not[citation needed]. Mesh analysis and loop analysis both make systematic use of Kirchhoff’s voltage law to arrive at a set of equations guaranteed to be solvable if the circuit has a solution.[1] Mesh analysis is usually easier to use when the circuit is planar, compared to loop analysis.[2]

  1. ^ Hayt, William H., & Kemmerly, Jack E. (1993). Engineering Circuit Analysis (5th ed.), New York: McGraw Hill.
  2. ^ Nilsson, James W., & Riedel, Susan A. (2002). Introductory Circuits for Electrical and Computer Engineering. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.