- 2073 Chaitra · 4 marks
Open, closed and short circuit
Short answer
A closed circuit has a complete path, current flows, load gets voltage. An open circuit has infinite resistance, zero current, full voltage across the break. A short circuit has near-zero resistance, causing very high current and zero voltage across the short.
Describe the open circuit, close circuit and short circuit with diagram.
Closed circuit
A closed circuit is a complete conducting path from the source, through the load and back to the source. Current flows. For a source E and load R, I = E/R, and the load gets its normal voltage.
Open circuit
An open circuit has a break in the path (an open switch or a broken wire). The resistance is infinite, so the current is zero and there is no voltage drop across the load. The full source voltage appears across the break (the open-circuit voltage).
Short circuit
A short circuit is a path of almost zero resistance across the source or load. The current becomes very large, I = E/R_internal, which can burn the wires and damage the source. The voltage across the shorted part is zero. Fuses and circuit breakers protect against it.
Closed Open Short
+--[sw]--+ +--/ --+ +--[sw]--+------+
| | | | | | |
(E) [R] (E) [R] (E) [R] wire
| | | | | | |
+--------+ +------+ +--------+------+
I = E/R I = 0 I very large
| Condition | Resistance | Current | Load voltage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Closed | finite R | E/R | E |
| Open | ∞ | 0 | 0 |
| Short | ≈ 0 | very large | 0 |
✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)
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