Transmission Line Short

REFLECTION OF DC VOLTAGE FROM A TRANSMISSION LINE SHORT

A SHORT-CIRCUITED line affects voltage change differently from the way an open-circuited line affects it. The voltage across a perfect short circuit must be zero; therefore, no power can be absorbed in the short, and the energy is reflected toward the generator.

The initial circuit is shown in the figure below, view A. The initial voltage and current waves (view B) are the same as those given for an infinite line. In a transmission line short the voltage change arrives at the last inductor in the same manner as the waves on an open-ended line. In this case, however, there is no capacitor to charge.

The current through the final inductor produces a voltage with the polarity shown in view C. When the field collapses, the inductor acts as a battery and forces current through the capacitor in the opposite direction, causing it to discharge (view D). Since the amount of energy stored in the magnetic field is the same as that in the capacitor, the capacitor discharges to zero.

Reflection from a short-circuited line.

Now there is no voltage to maintain the current through the next to the last inductor. Therefore, this inductor discharges the next to the last capacitor.

As each capacitor is discharged to zero, the next inductor effectively becomes a new source of voltage. The amplitude of each of these voltages is equal to E/2, but the polarity is the opposite of the battery at the input end of the line. The collapsing field around each inductor, in turn, produces a voltage that forces the current to continue flowing in the same direction, adding to the current from the source to make it 2I. This action continues until all the capacitors are discharged (view E).

Reflected waves from a transmission line short are characterized as follows:

· The reflected voltage has the opposite polarity but the same amplitude as the incident wave.

· The reflected current has the same polarity and the same amplitude as the incident current.

REFLECTION OF AC VOLTAGE FROM AN OPEN CIRCUIT

In most cases where rf lines are used, the voltages applied to the sending end are ac voltages. The action at the receiving end of the line is exactly the same for ac as for dc. In the open-ended line, shown in the figure below, view A, the generated ac voltage is distributed along the line, shown in view B. This voltage is distributed in such a way that as each instantaneous voltage arrives at the end, it is reflected with the same polarity and amplitude. When ac is used, this reflection is in phase. Each of the reflected voltages travels back along the line until it reaches the generator. If the generator impedance is the same as the line impedance, energy arriving at the generator is absorbed and not reflected again. Now two voltages are on the line.

Formation of standing waves.

View B shows how two waves of the same frequency and amplitude moving in opposite directions on the same conductor will combine to form a resultant wave. The small solid line is moving steadily from left to right and is the INCIDENT WAVE (from the source). The broken-line waveform is moving from right to left and is the REFLECTED WAVE.

The resultant waveform, the heavy line, is found by alge-braically adding instantaneous values of the two waveforms. The resultant waveform has an instantaneous peak amplitude that is equal to the sum of the peak amplitudes of the incident and reflected waves. Since most indicating instruments are unable to separate these voltages, they show the vector sum. An oscil-loscope is usually used to study the instantaneous voltages on rf lines.

Since two waves of voltage are moving on the line, you need to know how to distinguish between the two. The voltages moving toward the receiving end are called INCIDENT VOLTAGES, and the whole waveshape is called the INCIDENT WAVE. The wave moving back to the sending end after reflection is called the REFLECTED WAVE. The resultant voltage curve (view B of the figure above) shows that the voltage is maximum at the end of the line, a condition that occurs across an open circuit.

Another step in investigating the open-circuited rf line is to see how the current waves act. The incident current wave is the solid line in the figure above, view C. The voltage is represented by the dotted line. The current is in phase with the voltage while traveling toward the receiving end. At the end of the line, the current is reflected in the opposite polarity; that is, it is shifted 180 degrees in phase, but its amplitude remains the same. The reflected wave of current is shown by dashed lines in view C. The heavy-line curve represents the sum of the two instantaneous currents and is the resultant wave. Notice that current is zero at the end of the line. This is reasonable, since there can be no current flow through an open circuit.

Views B and C of the figure above show the voltage and current distribution along a transmission line at a point about 1/8 after a maximum voltage or current reaches the end of the line. Since the instantaneous values are continuously changing during the generation of a complete cycle, a large number of these pictures are required to show the many different relationships.

The figure below shows the incident and reflected waveshapes at several different times. The diagrams in the left column of the figure (representing voltage) show the incident wave and its reflection without change in polarity. In the same figure, waveform (1), the incident wave and the reflected wave are added algebraically to produce the resultant wave indicated by the heavy line. In waveform (2), a zero point preceding the negative-going cycle of the incident wave is at the end of the line. The reflected wave and incident wave are 180 degrees out of phase at all points. (The reflected wave is the positive cycle that just preceded the negative cycle now approaching the end of the line.) The resultant of the incident and reflected waves is zero at all points along the line. In waveform (3), the waves have moved 1/8 wavelength along the line: the incident wave has moved 45 degrees to the right, and the reflected wave has moved 45 degrees to the left. The resultant voltage, shown by the heavy line, has a maximum negative at the end of the line and a maximum positive 1/2 wavelength from the end of the line.

Instantaneous values of incident and reflected waves on an open-ended line.

We will cover the the figure above in more detail in the next tutorial.

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