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Kirchoff's Voltage Law does not work, per se, for open circuits. You need a closed circuit for it to make any kind of sense.

The signed sum of the voltage drops going around a series circuit is equal to zero.

That means you have a closed circuit.

However, it can be argued, correctly, that an open circuit is simply one that has two nodes with infinite resistance between them. Assuming that all of the other nodes have something less than infinite resistance between them, then Kirchoff's law does work, of sorts, in that the voltage drop across all nodes that are not voltage sources will be zero, because there is no current, and the voltage drop across the two nodes with infinite resistance will be equal to the sum of the voltage rises across the voltage sources. Current sources in such a circuit will not work, because, with zero current, they would attempt to generate infinite voltage.

Answer

Kirchhoff's Voltage Law does indeed apply to an open circuit, because the voltage drop across the open part of the circuit is numerically equal to the supply voltage and, hence, the algebraic sum of the voltage drops around that particular loop is zero.
Kirchoff's Voltage Law does not work, per se, for open circuits. You need a closed circuit for it to make any kind of sense.

The signed sum of the voltage drops going around a series circuit is equal to zero.

That means you have a closed circuit.

However, it can be argued, correctly, that an open circuit is simply one that has two nodes with infinite resistance between them. Assuming that all of the other nodes have something less than infinite resistance between them, then Kirchoff's law does work, of sorts, in that the voltage drop across all nodes that are not voltage sources will be zero, because there is no current, and the voltage drop across the two nodes with infinite resistance will be equal to the sum of the voltage rises across the voltage sources. Current sources in such a circuit will not work, because, with zero current, they would attempt to generate infinite voltage.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Why_kirchhoff's_voltage_law_is_applicable_for_open_circuit#ixzz1i2fWNqfN

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