A block-diagram approach to network analysis

BLOCK diagrams have been used for many years to facilitate planning of assembly lines, chemical processes, and complicated electric and electronic systems. More recently, block diagrams have been used extensively in the study of automatic control systems involving electric, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, optical, and other elements. By means of transfer functions, the blocks are used to represent the dynamic properties of the various elements, as well as their function in the complete system. This paper shows that the same block-diagram techniques developed for control systems can be applied to electric networks, reducing the computational labor needed to solve network problems and contributing fresh insights into network behavior which may be helpful in synthesis problems.