Thevenin equivalent
As originally stated in terms of DC resistive circuits only, Thévenin's theorem holds that:
In circuit theory terms, the theorem allows any one-port network to be reduced to a single voltage source and a single impedance.
The theorem also applies to frequency domain AC circuits consisting of reactive and resistive impedances. It means the theorem applies for AC in an exactly same way to DC except that resistances are generalized to impedances.
The theorem was independently derived in 1853 by the German scientist Hermann von Helmholtz and in 1883 by Léon Charles Thévenin (1857–1926), an electrical engineer with France's national Postes et Télégraphes telecommunications organization.
Thévenin's theorem and its dual, Norton's theorem, are widely used to make circuit analysis simpler and to study a circuit's initial-condition and steady-state response. Thévenin's theorem can be used to convert any circuit's sources and impedances to a Thévenin equivalent; use of the theorem may in some cases be more convenient than use of Kirchhoff's circuit laws.
The equivalent circuit is a voltage source with voltage VTh in series with a resistance RTh.
The Thévenin-equivalent voltage VTh is the voltage at the output terminals of the original circuit.It is the open circuited voltage at the output terminals of the original circuit. When calculating a Thévenin-equivalent voltage, the voltage divider principle is often useful, by declaring one terminal to be Vout and the other terminal to be at the ground point.
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