Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, Sixth Edition, 6th Edition

13

CHAPTER

Inductive Reactance

IN DC ELECTRICAL CIRCUITS, THE CURRENT, VOLTAGE, RESISTANCE, AND POWER RELATE ACCORDING to simple equations. The same equations work for AC circuits, provided that the components merely dissipate energy, and never store or release it. If a component stores or releases energy in an AC system, we say that the component has reactance. When we mathematically combine a component’s reactance and resistance, we get an expression of the component’s impedance, which fully quantifies how that component opposes, or impedes, the flow of AC.

Inductors and Direct Current

We can express DC resistance (in ohms, kilohms, megohms, or whatever other unit we want) as a number ranging from 0 (representing a perfect conductor) to extremely ...