Applicability of Thevenin

Hello,

Does Thevenin equivalent circuit have to consist solely of energy sources and resistors?

Can we apply Thevenin to a circuit of other elements such as capacitors and inductors?

What about Thevenin for AC sources, probably with different frequency and phases?

Thanks.

In any basic text book that covers Thevenin, the answers are right there. You only need to read a few paragraphs and look at the transformation theorems. You mentioned Thevenin so you must have read it so you already know.

Not really, the answers are not there...and you mentioned it, they are basic text books.

Try thinking about open ckt voltage and short ckt current. Voltage sources have zero impedances, current sources have infinite impedance. That's the jest of it. Perhaps you're reading too much into the theorem.

Hi Joseph,

If you checkup in your books or at internet on sites like wikipedia you will find the following

In circuit theory, Thévenin's theorem for linear electrical networks states that any combination of voltage sources, current sources, and resistors with two terminals is electrically equivalent to a single voltage source V and a single series resistor R. For single frequency AC systems the theorem can also be applied to general impedances, not just resistors.

So the answer is yes.

Impedances which are complex so combination of those is done the same usual way, I prefer Laplace.

Though it isn't limited to single frequency, sort of in the sense you must algebraically combine the result into a single source (trig), but no different than a DC source.

Example I have a 5Vac 60 Hz in the network and I have a 10Vac 120 Hz = 5sin(2pi*60) + 10sin(2pi*120) = look it up in the trig table. Obviously the lumped impedance would be a two terminal device (simplistically).

Thanks. This is very helpful.