More on the “skin effect”

More on the “skin effect”

As previously mentioned, the skin effect is where alternating current tends to avoid travel through the center of a solid conductor, limiting itself to conduction near the surface. This effectively limits the cross-sectional conductor area available to carry alternating electron flow, increasing the resistance of that conductor above what it would normally be for direct current:

The electrical resistance of the conductor with all its cross-sectional area in use is known as the “DC resistance,” the “AC resistance” of the same conductor referring to a higher figure resulting from the skin effect. As you can see, at high frequencies the AC current avoids travel through most of the conductor’s cross-sectional area. For the purpose of conducting current, the wire might as well be hollow!