Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 74 views

    How Does An Inductor Work

    Uploaded by

    Kate Shaira V. Maguila
    An inductor works similarly to a water wheel. When current first starts flowing, the inductor provides a lot of resistance due to the time needed for the coils to start moving. This causes most current to instead flow through a parallel resistor load. As the coils accelerate, their resistance decreases until they provide almost no resistance, so current then preferentially flows through the inductor rather than the resistor load. When power is removed, the spinning coils maintain their momentum, inducing current to continue briefly flowing through the resistor load until the energy stored in the magnetic field is dissipated.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    How Does An Inductor Work

    Uploaded by

    Kate Shaira V. Maguila
    74 views3 pages
    An inductor works similarly to a water wheel. When current first starts flowing, the inductor provides a lot of resistance due to the time needed for the coils to start moving. This causes most current to instead flow through a parallel resistor load. As the coils accelerate, their resistance decreases until they provide almost no resistance, so current then preferentially flows through the inductor rather than the resistor load. When power is removed, the spinning coils maintain their momentum, inducing current to continue briefly flowing through the resistor load until the energy stored in the magnetic field is dissipated.

    Original Description:

    How Does an Inductor Work

    Original Title

    How Does an Inductor Work

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    An inductor works similarly to a water wheel. When current first starts flowing, the inductor provides a lot of resistance due to the time needed for the coils to start moving. This causes most current to instead flow through a parallel resistor load. As the coils accelerate, their resistance decreases until they provide almost no resistance, so current then preferentially flows through the inductor rather than the resistor load. When power is removed, the spinning coils maintain their momentum, inducing current to continue briefly flowing through the resistor load until the energy stored in the magnetic field is dissipated.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    74 views3 pages

    How Does An Inductor Work

    Uploaded by

    Kate Shaira V. Maguila
    An inductor works similarly to a water wheel. When current first starts flowing, the inductor provides a lot of resistance due to the time needed for the coils to start moving. This causes most current to instead flow through a parallel resistor load. As the coils accelerate, their resistance decreases until they provide almost no resistance, so current then preferentially flows through the inductor rather than the resistor load. When power is removed, the spinning coils maintain their momentum, inducing current to continue briefly flowing through the resistor load until the energy stored in the magnetic field is dissipated.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 3

    How Does an Inductor Work?

    First, think about water flowing though some pipes. There is a pump pushing
    this water which is equivalent to our battery. The pipe splits into two
    branches, the pipes are the equivalent to our wires. One branch has a pipe
    with a reducer in it, that reduction makes it a little hard for water to flow
    through, so it’s equivalent to resistance in an electrical circuit.

    Inductor electrical circuit.


    The other branch has a water wheel built in. The water wheel can rotate and
    the water flowing through it will cause it to rotate. The wheel is very heavy
    though so it takes some time to get up to speed and the water has to keep
    pushing against it to get it to move. This is equivalent to our inductor.

    Water Wheel Analogy


    When we first start the pump, the water is going to flow and it wants to get
    back to the pump as this is a closed loop, just like when electrons leave the
    battery they flow to try and get back to the other side of the battery.
    Please note- in these animations we use electron flow which is from negative
    to positive but you might be used to seeing conventional flow which is from
    positive to negative. Just be aware of the two and which one we’re using.

    As the water flows; it reaches the branches and has to decide which path to
    take. The water pushes against the wheel, but the wheel is going to take
    some time to get moving and so it’s adding a lot of resistance to the pipe
    making it too difficult for water to flow through this path, therefore the water
    will instead take the path of the reducer because it can flow straight through
    and get back to the pump much easier.

    As the water keeps pushing, the wheel will begin to turn faster and faster
    until it reaches its maximum speed. Now the wheel doesn’t provide almost
    any resistance so the water can flow through this path much easier than the
    reducer path. The water will pretty much stop flowing through the reducer
    and will all flow through the water wheel.

    When we turn off the pump, no more water will enter the system, but the
    water wheel is going so fast it can’t just stop, it has inertia. As it keeps
    rotating it will now push the water and act like a pump. The water will flow
    around the loop back on its self until the resistance of the pipes and the
    reducer slows the water down enough that the wheel stops spinning.

    We can therefore turn the pump on and off and the water wheel will keep the
    water moving for a short duration during the interruptions. 

    We get a very similar scenario when we connect an inductor in parallel with a


    resistive load such as a lamp.
    Inductor Basics.
    When we power the circuit, the electrons are going to first flow through the
    lamp and power it, very little current will flow through the inductor because
    its resistance, at first, is too large. The resistance will reduce and allow more
    current to flow. Eventually the inductor provides nearly no resistance so the
    electrons will prefer to take this path back to the power source and the lamp
    will turn off.

    Reducing Resistance.

    When we disconnect the power supply, the inductor is going to continue


    pushing electrons around in a loop and through the lamp until the resistance
    dissipates the energy.

    Circuit example when power is off.

    You might also like