Voltage Divider

voltage divider: see potentiometer.

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voltage divider [′vōl·tij di‚vīd·ər]

(electricity)

A tapped resistor, adjustable resistor, potentiometer, or a series arrangement of two or more fixed resistors connected across a voltage source; a desired fraction of the total voltage is obtained from the intermediate tap, movable contact, or resistor junction. Also known as potential divider.

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Voltage Divider 

an electrical device for dividing a DC or AC voltage into parts. All voltage dividers consist of reactances or effective resistances.

Voltage dividers are usually used to measure voltage. At low voltages series-connected resistors (Figure l,a) are used.

Figure 1. Circuits of low-voltage voltage dividers: (a) resistive, (b) capacitive, (c) inductive; (u) and (U) voltages, (r) and (R) resistances, (C₁) and (C₂) capacitances, (L₁) and (L₂) inductances

Capacitive voltage dividers with fixed or variable capacitors (Figure l,b), as well as induction voltage dividers (Figure l,c), are used for alternating currents. Capacitive voltage dividers, which consist of several series-connected high-accuracy capacitors (Figure 2), are used in electric power

Figure 2. Circuit of a high-voltage voltage divider: (U), (U₁), and (U₂) voltages; (SG) spark gap; (R) reactor; (T) transformer, (V) volt-meter

engineering to take off small amounts of power from a high-voltage transmission line (up to 500 kilovolts). An autotransformer is an example of an inductive voltage divider.

N. G. VOSTROKNUTOV