Conventional Current Flow In A Circuit

Concepts of voltage current resistance continuity and even mathematical treatments such as ohm s law chapter 2 and kirchhoff s laws chapter 6 remain just as valid with either style of notation.

Conventional current flow in a circuit. So now i m gonna redraw my circuit and my battery. This was the convention chosen during the discovery of electricity. And when we design circuits what we do is we we put stuff in the way of this electron on its path and this is where we build our circuits. Electron flow is what actually happens and electrons flow out of the negative terminal through the circuit and into the positive terminal of the source.

Current flows from the negative side of the battery through the resistance to the positive side rather than vice versa. Conventional current assumes that current flows out of the positive terminal through the circuit and into the negative terminal of the source. Conventional current flow is the standard that almost all of the world follows to solve a circuit problem. Electron flow is simply the opposite of conventional current flow.

So if the arrow from the picture above were at the bottom of the circuit diagram. These two notations are opposite to each other. We need a notation to do some calculations like in kirchhoff s law. Therefore circuit diagrams showed the current moving from the positive terminal to the negative terminal.

This illustrates conventional current flow. The conventional current direction or the current direction is this way. In general analyzing an electrical circuit yields results that are independent of the assumed direction of current flow. Conventional current is the flow of a positive charge from positive to negative and is the reverse of real electron flow.

All descriptions of electronic circuits use conventional current so if you see an arrow depicting current flow in a circuit diagram you know it is showing the direction of conventional current flow. The direction of conventional current is arbitrarily defined as the direction in which positive charges flow. Negatively charged carriers such as the electrons the charge carriers in metal wires and many other electronic circuit components therefore flow in the opposite direction of conventional current flow in an electrical circuit. Conventional current and electron current identification consider circuit diagram with voltage source as battery and the resistance r is connected with a voltage source.

We have unfortunately stuck with this convention to this day and so current flow from positive to negative is called conventional current flow and is used when drawing circuit diagrams. Electron flow and conventional current flow it is important to realize that the difference between conventional current flow and electron flow in no way effects any real world behavior or computational results. Electron current and conventional current are two types of notation we use to mention current flow in a circuit. You may follow an imagined direction of current conventional flow or the actual electron flow with equal success insofar as circuit analysis is concerned.