Norton Equivalent

A section of circuit involving voltage sources, current sources and resistors can always be replaced with a single current source in parallel with a single resistor without affecting the rest of the circuit. We call this single current source and single resistor the norton equivalent.

The norton equivalent voltage, current and resistance are all the same as the thevenin equivalent values.

The current source's current, \(I_{n}\) is given by shorting a to be with a single wire and finding the current that would flow through that wire.

The norton resistance \(R_{n}\) is given by finding the equivalent resistance from terminal a to terminal b. You replace all voltage sources with wires and all current sources with open circuits then simplify the resulting circuit to a single resistor.