bypasssstroom

Bypasssstroom is a term occasionally used in electronics to describe a portion of current that flows through a path designed to bypass one or more elements of a circuit. The word is formed from the English term bypass and the Dutch word stroom, meaning current. It is not a formal standard term in all electrical engineering references, but it appears in schematics and explanatory texts to discuss parallel current paths.

In a typical circuit, the main current through a load may be complemented by a bypass current that takes an alternate route via a low-impedance branch such as a decoupling capacitor, a shunt resistor, or a dedicated bypass transistor. The bypass path generally has lower impedance at the frequencies of interest, causing a portion of the total current to flow there, which can stabilize voltage, reduce noise, or protect components from transients.

Calculations of bypasssstroom use standard parallel impedance or current-division concepts. For two branches with impedances Z1 (main path) and Z2 (bypass), the current through the bypass path is I_bypass = Itotal × (Z1 / (Z1 + Z2)) in a simple case. In more complex networks, nodal analysis or mesh analysis is employed to determine the distribution of current among branches.

Applications include decoupling in power supply rails, where capacitors provide a bypass path for high-frequency currents; signal integrity circuits using bypass paths to ground; and protection circuits using intentional bypass to limit voltage spikes. Variants include passive bypass components and active bypass schemes that engage additional devices under certain conditions.

See also: decoupling capacitor, current divider, shunt regulator, bypass capacitor.