IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 48, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2005

157

Using MATHCAD in Teaching Power Engineering

Cristian Domnisoru, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractStudents typically use small calculators or personal computer applications such as MATLAB or MATHCAD to perform basic electrical engineering calculations. From the experience of teaching several power engineering courses, the author noted that when using computer software to solve problems, students tend to lose the meaning of the equations, concentrating solely on typing variables and numbers. Some programs are especially inviting for making this error. MATLAB, for instance, does not use any built-in units of measurement, leaving the management of such units to the user. The users attention shifts from the problem to the units. Although not as powerful and fast as MATLAB, MATHCAD, on the other hand, has a great potential to help students better understand introductory courses. There are two most important features. First, the screen appearance of the equations matches as closely as possible to the traditional form of the equations and helps the students to become familiar with the concepts. Although a bit difcult to type, the equations written in their natural form help avoid errors. A second feature, the use of built-in measurement units, is particularly helpful because the students can concentrate on the meaning of what they learn and know the transformation will be done properly. A technique for representing magnetization curves in MATHCAD (and the corresponding calculations) is also presented. The technique allows for a computer simulation of graphical calculations traditionally used in electrical machine design. The class-related experience has shown that even the simple examples presented in this paper could prove to be difcult for students, especially when choosing a programming language to help with the calculations. Index TermsCircuit analysis, educational technology, electrical engineering education, magnetic circuits, simulation software, software tools.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE POWER engineering introductory courses in the electrical engineering curriculum have remained traditional in many ways during the years. Usually, the rst course in power engineering is dedicated to an introduction in electrical machines and transformers. Several textbooks are available, such as [1] and [2]. A typical course would start with a review of circuit theory and the basic laws of electromagnetism, continue with principles of electromechanical energy conversion, then present transformers, direct-current generators and motors, and nally synchronous motors, generators, and induction motors. This paper is concerned with a discussion of the software used in such a course. The intent is to provide the students with a tool to help them solve their homework and understand the subject matter better. It is desirable that this software be reasonably fast and user friendly.

Manuscript received May 12, 2003; revised June 2, 2004. The author is with the Graduate Programs in Software Engineering, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN 55105-1079 USA (e-mail: cdomnisoru@ stthomas.edu). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TE.2004.837043

The choice, in this case, was between MATLAB and MATHCAD. A very good introduction to MATLAB from the electrical engineering perspective is presented in [3]. MATLAB is known for being reliable and fast. In addition, a large user community, especially in the electrical engineering area, provides support and many example les. In many areas of electrical engineering, several toolboxes are available at a professional level. For instance, the control toolbox integrated in Simulink and developed in the MATLAB environment remains a preferred choice in any control course in the electrical engineering curriculum. However, in this paper, the concern is with choosing a tool for students following an applied curriculum rather than a theoretical one. These students are not likely to take an in-depth control course that would entail sophisticated simulations requiring a professional tool, such as MATLAB. Even for electrical engineering students who do not continue their studies to graduate school, the high-performance simulations available in MATLAB will remain out of reach. However, these students would undoubtedly face needs not met by MATLAB. One need is for an easy-to-use tool for performing basic calculations in a natural way. From this perspective, MATLAB is a programming language requiring special training. Even if mastered, any simple problem to be solved requires translation into MATLAB. Even simple mathematical formulas (abundant in a power engineering class) will therefore be encrypted in MATLAB and will require a continuous effort of understanding and deciphering. In addition, the numerical results of the calculations will also need to be interpreted and assessed with proper units of measurement. For example, if the student is calculating the current in a simple circuit, the numerical result could be in ampere (A), milliampere (mA), or any other subdivision of the basic unit. This result depends on how the formulas for calculating the result were written and how the input was introduced. Although this problem may seem trivial for an experienced engineer, from the perspective of teaching, any instructor would recognize its importance. Too often, students obtain amazing results, failing to identify basic errors. The alternative is to use MATHCAD (for an introduction, see [5] and [6]). Although not as fast as MATLAB, and less powerful at running large simulations, it comes with certain advantages. The most important is the interface that tries to mimic the natural way used to write mathematical formulas. Although the student will have to learn to use the interface, it is much easier than learning a programming language. The basic idea is to duplicate on the screen the mathematical formulas from the textbook (paper). In general, (although not entirely true) if a formula does not look like one in the textbook, then it was erroneously typed and needs editing. In contrast, a programming language lacks this visual feedback.

0018-9359/$20.00 2005 IEEE

158

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 48, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Another important advantage of MATHCAD is the integration in its calculations of the units of measurement. In fact, the user is completely free from keeping track of the units used. Indicating the units for each data input and simply asking for the answer is sufcient in any particular unit format for the transformations to be performed automatically. For example, consider a very basic circuit containing only a resistor connected to a voltage source. The current through the resistor is simply the ratio between voltage and the corresponding resistance. In MATHCAD, this relationship will look as follows:

Fig. 1. Unbalanced three-phase, four wire, wye-connected load.

The phase voltages are obtained with the relations 110 V 10 11 A Note that the user introduces the units of measurement using the multiplication operator. This system is, again, very natural and easily understood. In the remainder of this paper, several examples are presented emphasizing the use of MATHCAD to simplify the material presented in class and to help students avoid erroneous interpretations. II. UNBALANCED THREE-PHASE WYE-CONNECTED LOAD A. The Problem A simple example from [1, p. 33, example 2.6] was chosen. The intent is to show how very simple calculations can mislead students and how the use of MATHCAD can clarify the problem. An unbalanced three-phase, four wire, wye-connected load is considered, as shown in Fig. 1. The load is connected to a balanced three-phase, four-wire source. The load impedare given as 100 50 , 150 140 , and ances , , and 100 per phase, respectively. The line voltage is also 50 given: 13.8 kV. The students are required to determine: 1) the line and neutral currents and 2) the total power delivered to the loads. This problem is very simple for an experienced reader. However, teaching experience shows that even this example can cause problems. One should point out here that MATHCAD does not provide an operator for displaying complex values in their traditional notation in electrical engineering: amplitude angle. Therefore, an operator is used to obtain the amplitude and, separately, a function for obtaining the angle. B. The Solution The input data is simply introduced as The solution for the problem consists of simply typing the basic formulas. For the line currents 79.674 A 53.116 A 139.349 A and 146.796 A 98.2deg 50 deg 20 deg 140 deg

The amplitude and phase angle of these voltages are V V V 0 deg 120 deg 120 deg

The only remaining task is the calculation of the power delivered by each phase. By denition, this power is given by the real part of the product between the voltage across the impedance and the complex conjugate of the corresponding current. In MATHCAD this translates to 408.042 kW 324.19 kW 220.464 kW Thus, the total power delivered is 136.612 kW

100 150 50 13.8 kV

DOMNISORU: USING MATHCAD IN TEACHING POWER ENGINEERING

159

C. The Solution in MATLAB A simple implementation of the problem follows:

Fig. 2. Simple magnetic circuit with an air gap.

1) given the ux, calculate the current in the coil and 2) given the current in the coil, nd the ux. The geometry of the magnetic core could be more complicated, but for the goal here, it is better to use this simple conguration. Again, for numerical values, an example is used from [1]. B. The Solution This problem is somehow more complicated because of the nonlinear nature of the magnetization characteristic. However, students will have to handle numerous nonlinear relationships in their studies. A method to handle these relationships is presented next. The idea is to create a function that will return the nonlinear value given by the characteristic. To obtain the function, two vectors (containing the nonlinear relationship) are created rst, and then the function is dened using a spline interpolation. For the soft steel casting magnetization curve in this problem, the magnetization curve is given by

The numerical results are the same. However, the lack of support for units of measurement creates problems. The student has to get involved in programming issues, such as preparing the angles and the variables in appropriate units. D. Observations The most common error made by students in problems of this kind is to assume the active power delivered to an impedance is the product between the voltage and the current amplitudes and the cosine of the angle between the two corresponding phasors. Then, they need to distinguish whether the load is acting as a sink, absorbing energy, or as a source, delivering energy. A simple way of solving this problem is to carefully consider the sign of the cosine in the power calculation formula. An equivalent way is to take into consideration whether the current is lagging or leading the corresponding voltage phasor. Unfortunately, this last consideration is often forgotten. For a load, in the sink convention, reactive energy is being generated when the current is leading the load and absorbed when the current is lagging. In calculations, a negative sign indicates the energy is generated, while a positive sign (for power) indicates the energy is being absorbed. (For a detailed discussion of sign conventions, see [4].) The classroom experience has shown that when using MATHCAD and the denition formulas for these types of problems, students are less likely to confuse generator branches with sinks, and vice versa, than when using other programs, such as MATLAB. III. SIMPLE MAGNETIC CIRCUITS A. The Problem Another type of problem, in an introductory course in power engineering, is the basic calculation of a simple magnetic circuit. A picture of a circuit with a uniform cross section is shown in Fig. 2. The geometry of the circuit is known (geometrical dimensions including the air gap ). The two typical problems are

A m

A graph of the magnetization curve is presented in Fig. 3. For dening the interpolation function to nd the magnetic, as a function of the magnetic eld intensity in the core , the MATHCAD relations are ux density and To test that this function performs properly, one can simply ask for the eld intensity for a specic ux density T A m

The parameters for this problem are as follows: Number of turns Cross-sectional area Length of the average ux path Air gap length 500 m 0.4 m 2 mm

160

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 48, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Make a guess for the magnetic ux density as a solution of (1) 1 T The MATHCAD solve block is as follows: Given

(Note that in the above relation, the equal sign is a special sign in MATHCAD, indicating a constraint to be satised rather than simply equality or a result; also, the word given is a MATHCAD keyword.) Find
Fig. 3. Magnetization as a function of applied eld.

1.741 T

The required ux is Wb C. Observations There are many situations in the electrical engineering curriculum where nonlinear equations need to be solved; therefore, the simple technique provided is useful in many instances. A major advantage of solving nonlinear equations using MATHCAD is the display of the variables and equations in a natural visual form. Another advantage is the integration of units of measurement into the overall solution. Traditionally, graphical techniques are suggested for solving nonlinear equations in a power engineering curriculum. Those techniques require detailed classroom explanations and a signicant student effort. Given an elegant and well-tested general solution, as provided by MATHCAD for nonlinear equations, the students can focus on understanding the subject matter presented. IV. CONCLUSION

Note the convenient notation for the input variable. In addition, the measurement units conversion is to be accomplished by MATHCAD. The solution for the two problems outlined previously follows. 1) Given the Flux, Calculate the Current in the Coil: In this case, the calculations are straightforward. Assume the given ux as Wb Henry m Find 1.667 T Find the current in the coil to produce the given ux, as follows: and 9.672 A

2) Given the Current in the Coil, Find the Flux: This task gets more difcult because of the nonlinear component included in the relationships of the Ampre law for the given magnetic circuit. (1) The task actually involves solving the nonlinear (1). At this point, the standard textbooks indicate a graphical solution or an iterative algorithm for solving the nonlinear equation. Again, the classroom experience shows that such an approach is a departure from the focus of the subject (power engineering), and even more outdated techniques are used for solving nonlinear equations. The proposed approach, involves solving (1) using the MATHCAD solve block feature. This solution has three steps. 1) Start with a rough guess for the solution. 2) Indicate the constraint equations to be solved. 3) Ask for the solution using the function nd. The actual MATHCAD solution follows. Assume the current in the coil: 12 A

MATHCAD represents a very powerful tool for performing simple calculations in a power engineering class. The equations to be solved are written in a form similar to their appearance in textbooks providing an immediate visual feedback. In this way, the students have a better understanding of the material presented. When using a software tool in class or for preparing homework, students nd that MATHCAD helps in shifting the focus from learning the tool to learning the concepts presented. The classroom experience has shown a reduced number of errors in calculations reported by students when using MATHCAD. This reduction can be attributed to the MATHCADs better visual interface. REFERENCES
[1] T. Gonen, Electrical Machines. Carmichael, CA: Power International Press, 1998, pp. 11183. [2] B. S. Guru and H. R. Hiziroglu, Electric Machinery and Transformers. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. [3] D. Hanselman and B. Littleeld, Mastering MATLAB 6, A Comprehensive Tutorial and Reference. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2001. [4] R. C. Dorf and J. A. Svoboda, Introduction to Electric Circuits. New York: Wiley, 2000. [5] R. W. Larsen, Introduction to MATHCAD. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999. [6] Mathcad Users Guide, MathSoft, Cambridge, MA, 2001.

DOMNISORU: USING MATHCAD IN TEACHING POWER ENGINEERING

161

Cristian Domnisoru (M00SM00) was born in Iasi, Romania, in 1964. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Iasi, Iasi, Romania, in 1988 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the same university in 1997. He was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher (1998) and a NATO Visiting Scientist (19992001) with the University of Maine, Orono. Between 2001 and 2003, he was a Research Associate Professor at the University of Maine. Since September 2003, he has been an Associate Professor in the Graduate Programs in Software Engineering at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN. His current research interest is in bioinformatics. Dr. Domnisoru is a Member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS).