Topology (electrical Circuits) - Series and Parallel Topologies

Series and Parallel Topologies

For a network with two branches, there are only two possible topologies: series and parallel.

Even for these simplest of topologies, there are variations in the way the circuit can be presented.

For a network with three branches there are four possible topologies;

Note that the parallel/series topology is another representation of the Delta topology discussed later.

Series and parallel topologies can continue to be constructed with greater and greater numbers of branches ad infinitum. The number of unique topologies that can be obtained from n branches is 2n-1. The total number of unique topologies that can be obtained with no more than n branches is 2n-1.