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Pulse, Impulse..

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Electronman

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Hi,

Can somebody tells me what 'pulse' and 'impulse' waves are and mean in electrical circuits?
What about a wave which just have a value at zero point? What do you call it?
 
A pulse has a finite duration and amplitude, and can be real or mathematical.

A true impulse is a mathematical function only, with a finite amplitude but zero width. Its typical use is to derive the transfer function of a circuit. It can sometimes be approximated in a real circuit with a very short pulse.
 
My math is a little rusty and my comment about an impulse function really applies to a Unit Impulse Function. One use of this is with Laplace Transforms to generate a transfer function. See https://www.math.ust.hk/~makxu/MATH151/ch06_5.ppt for a short mathematical discussion.

In practice an impulse can be viewed as a pulse applied to a system, which is so much shorter than the system response time, that the system responds as if it where a pulse with zero time but finite energy. (Think of a hammer hitting a bell).
 
The singularity functions... doublet, impulse, unit step, unit ramp and unit parabola are used in circut analysis to study circuit response to a disturbance. Integrate in one direction and differentiate in the other... i.e. take the derivative of a ramp and you get a step. Take the derivative of a step and you get an impulse (BTW… the integral of an impulse is = 1). Take the derivative of a impulse and you get a doublet. When you integrate, go in the other direction.
 
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