On Mar 30, 3:44 pm, Cecil Moore wrote:
So does the Superposition Principle give us permission
to analyze the forward wave and the reflected wave
separately, or not?

It would appear from the many posts that the consensus is
that superposition is alive and well. It works for voltages
and currents. It does not work for power.

But then I have two questions.

Firstly, in another thread, the solution for the problem
presented required knowing the impedance that the generator
presented to the reflected wave. This is exactly the sort
of question that superposition handles easily: The impedance
encountered by the reflected wave at the generator is the
same as the generator's source impedance. I am curious as to
why you don't want to use superposition to facilitate solving
this problem?

Secondly, the "directional wattmeter" uses superposition
to compute Vf and Vr from which it computes Pf and Pr. You,
like many others seem willing to subtract Pr from Pf to
obtain Pnet. But this would only seem to be valid if
superposition works for power. So why are people who accept
that superposition does not work for power, prepared to
accept that Pnet = Pf - Pr?

....Keith