Harmonics

Harmonics, Sine/Square Waves, Clipping

[shubhambhatt]

thanks sir ... your explanation is too good..

[noweare]

same thing happens in an inductor (magnetic core and 1 winding) if you saturate and magnetic core. Not only will the sine wave distort from clipping but the current will shoot up (spike) exponentially.

[hakonmoen]

Problem:

Illustrations/demonstrations often show the similarities between a square wave and a series of harmonic series sinusidial signals added «on top» the fundamental signal. 
But if I were to (ideally) clip a sinusodial wave, I would have to show that doing so is the same as adding whole-number multiplicities of the fundamental, and not the other way around. (?)

Yes, they may be equivalent operations, but it is still a mystery to me why. That is why clipping a signal adds overtones, and not so much that summing some sin-signals can generate a new square-looking signal. 



Question:

Can it be show, graphically, witch overtones are added to a sinusoidal when it is just slightly clipped and «fully» squared off?
And then in turn the relationship between the amount of clipping/type of distortion and the subsequent result in a spectrum analysis?



It’s not that easy to convey my problem in text form, but if you catch my train of thoughts here, it would be more helpful to me getting an explanation of why clipping adds harmonics. Not THAT a clipped signal can be mimicked by summing up several signals and therefore it’s the same thing.

[jakedillingham]

So would that be the same for dc or dose this just apply in ac?