Electronic – Trouble applying water pressure analogy to electrical circuits

voltage

I am preparing a lesson plan on voltage for a class and it's been a while since I've studied electronics. I like to use analogies to help students understand concepts that are often hard to grasp.

Currently (npi), I am trying to describe how voltage is analogous to water pressure and how resistance is the obstruction of water flow. By partially covering a water hose's opening thereby creating resistance, the output water pressure increases, but the amount of water flowing is the same. The analogy, however, seems to fall apart when you consider that adding a resistor in series decreases the voltage, but the current increases. Moreover, if I connect a Y hose fitting to the water hose, creating a parallel connection, the output water pressure decreases, but in a electrical circuit the voltage is the same.

Is my understanding correct? If so, how can I explain voltage in terms of the analogy?

Best Answer

First, analogies can be good for getting the basic concepts, but can only go so far. A common pitfal with the water analogy is that, unlike the air around a hose, the air around a wire is non-conduting. It can also make the requirement for closed loop current hard to grasp later. Someone holding the end of a hose and the water spilling onto the ground is a mental picture you want them NOT to have of electric circuits.

This doesn't mean the water analogy can't be useful. It can, but don't make too big a deal of it. Use it to introduce the concepts of voltage (pressure) and current (flow rate), but don't go too far with it. The details don't match well with electric circuits, so get off the water analogy once the basic concepts have been introduced.

By partially covering a water hose's opening thereby creating resistance, the output water pressure increases

NO! It seems you have yourself fallen into the water analogy too deeply. Analogies are aids in learning, not substitutes for actually knowing something.

There is no simple electric equivalent of a open-ended hose. If the hose were to continue, the pressure after the constriction would be lower than in front of it. Actually with the open-ended hose it is even lower. You can't observe pressure, only flow. You see a jet of water and erroneously assume it has high pressure. It may have high velocity, but that's not pressure.

This is yet another source of confusion from the water analogy. Water velocity (meters/second, for example) doesn't really map to anything useful in electricity. Stick to flow rate (gallons/minute), which maps to electric current flow (Amperes).

One of the big problems with the water analogy is that we intuitively know that water has momentum, even when we aren't aware we are looking at water that way. The jet of water produced by the nozzle relies on momentum. There is nothing analagous in electricity (yes, I know about electron guns, but by the time you understand those, you're way past the initial crutch of the water analogy).

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