Ten Essential Skills for Electrical Engineers / Barry L
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Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Preface Acknowledgments About the Author About the Reviewers Note to Instructors ONE SEMESTER COURSE ONE-QUARTER COURSE 1: How to Design Resistive Circuits 1.1 DESIGN OF A RESISTIVE THEVENIN SOURCE 1.2 DESIGN OF A COUPLING CIRCUIT 1.3 DESIGN OF A PI ATTENUATOR PROBLEMS 2 REFERENCES 2: How to Prevent a Power Transistor From Overheating 2.1 ELECTRICAL MODEL FOR HEAT TRANSFER 2.2 USING MANUFACTURER’S DATA FOR THERMAL ANALYSIS 2.3 FORCED-AIR COOLING 2.4 DYNAMIC RESPONSE OF A THERMAL SYSTEM PROBLEMS REFERENCE 3: How to Analyze a Circuit 3.1 FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF A TRANSFER FUNCTION 3.2 FREQUENCY RESPONSE AND IMPEDANCE OF SIMPLE CIRCUITS 3.3 FREQUENCY RESPONSE FOR LADDER NETWORKS 3.4 GENERALIZED TECHNIQUE FOR DETERMINING FREQUENCY RESPONSE PROBLEMS 3 REFERENCES 4: How to Use Statistics to Ensure a Manufacturable Design 4.1 INDEPENDENT COMPONENT FAILURES 4.2 USING THE GAUSSIAN DISTRIBUTION 4.3 SETTING A MANUFACTURING TEST LIMIT 4.4 PROCURING A CUSTOM COMPONENT PROBLEMS REFERENCES 5: How to Design a Feedback Control System 5.1 INTUITIVE DESCRIPTION OF A CONTROL SYSTEM 5.2 REVIEW OF CONTROL SYSTEM OPERATION 5.3 PERFORMANCE OF CONTROL SYSTEMS 5.4 FIRST-ORDER CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN 5.5 SECOND-ORDER CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN 5.6 CIRCUIT REALIZATION OF A SECOND-ORDER CONTROL SYSTEM 5.7 FIRST-ORDER DISCRETE CONTROL SYSTEM PROBLEMS 4 REFERENCES 6: How to Work with OP-AMP Circuits 6.1 THE IDEAL OP-AMP 6.2 PRACTICAL OP-AMPS PROBLEMS REFERENCES 7: How to Design Analog Filters 7.1 PASSIVE VERSUS ACTIVE FILTERS 7.2 THE LOWPASS RC FILTER 7.3 FILTER RESPONSE CHARACTERISTICS 7.4 SPECIFICATION OF FILTER TYPE 7.5 GENERALIZED FILTER DESIGN PROCEDURE 7.6 DESIGN OF ACTIVE LOWPASS FILTERS 7.7 DESIGN OF PASSIVE RF FILTERS PROBLEMS REFERENCES 8: How to Design Digital Filters 5 8.1 REVIEW OF SAMPLING 8.2 USING THE Z-TRANSFORM TO DETERMINE THE TRANSFER FUNCTION AND FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF DIGITAL FILTERS 8.3 FIR AND IIR DIGITAL FILTERS 8.4 DESIGN OF SIMPLE AND PRACTICAL DIGITAL FILTERS PROBLEMS REFERENCES 9: How to Work with RF Signals 9.1 ENERGY TRANSFER 9.2 SIGNAL REFLECTIONS 9.3 EFFECT OF SIGNAL REFLECTIONS ON DIGITAL SIGNALS 9.4 EFFECT OF SIGNAL REFLECTIONS ON NARROWBAND SIGNALS 9.5 THE SMITH CHART 9.6 USING THE SMITH CHART TO DISPLAY IMPEDANCE VERSUS FREQUENCY 6 9.7 FINAL COMMENTS REGARDING THE SMITH CHART PROBLEMS REFERENCES 10: Getting a Job—Keeping a Job—Enjoying Your Work 10.1 GETTING A JOB 10.2 KEEPING A JOB 10.3 ENJOYING YOUR WORK Afterword Answers to Problems Index 7 8 Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or 9 any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Dorr, Barry L., 1958- Ten essential skills for electrical engineers / Barry L. Dorr. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-118-52742-9 (pbk.) 1. Electrical engineering–Problems, exercises, etc. 2. Electrical engineering–Vocational guidance. I. Title. TK169.D67 2014 621.38–dc23 2013026573 10 This book is dedicated to my father, Roger Dorr, who shared with me his love of all things mechanical, electrical, and musical. It is dedicated to my wife, Judy, who brings joy to me and all whom she touches. 11 PREFACE This book and the companion website* will do two things for you: First, it will help you excel in your technical interviews so you can secure a great first job. Second, it will help you succeed in that job by showing you how to solve real-world problems using what you already know from your engineering courses. There is often a disconnect between what you learned in school and the expectations of those interviewing you. On one hand, the engineering curriculum has taught you a tremendous amount of theoretical and practical material, but it is simply not possible to remember it all in an interview. On the other hand, the interviewing team will likely consist of your potential supervisor and coworkers, and they will be looking for someone with the skills to be an immediate contributor in their department. The interview will typically focus on what you can do instead of how much you know. This book bridges the gap by reviewing how to apply what you learned in school to practical engineering tasks. Each chapter reviews design skills by relating them to fundamental concepts. Consider the skill of designing an averaging FIR digital filter. This is a valuable skill, but the best designers understand the basics of digital filters—they understand the practical use of z-transforms and how to work with any discrete-time structure. As a result, they can work with a wide variety of digital filters thereby enabling them to design the best filter for a given requirement. This text reviews digital filter design and many more commonly required design skills covering a wide variety of areas and 12 relates them to the fundamentals. Chapters begin with the fundamentals and then present the skills. As a workplace reference, this book will give you information you need to succeed at basic design tasks. For more in-depth problems, it will help direct you to manufacturer’s literature or the appropriate sections of your college textbooks. I hope it will merit valuable space on your bookshelf for many years. Whether you are a recent graduate or an experienced engineer, your time is valuable. This book was written to help you—not challenge you. To this end, the mathematical derivations are kept simple, but not simplistic, and the examples presented show practical applications using practical skills that will help you in job interviews and during your first several years in the workplace. Each chapter in this book can be read in a matter of hours—not days. Finally, I hope that you enjoy working through the examples and problems in this book, and I hope they motivate you to tackle and solve hundreds or thousands of problems over what should be a satisfying and rewarding career. BARRY L. DORR, PE Carlsbad, CA May 2013 * www.blog.dorrengineering.com 13 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Shortly after obtaining my BSEE and moving to San Diego, I attended several signal processing lectures by Professor fred harris (capitalization omitted at his insistence) at San Diego State University. Professor harris had an uncanny ability to explain difficult signal processing techniques using basic concepts and simple drawings. Wanting to learn more, I pursued an MSEE at San Diego State and was fortunate to have him as part of my thesis committee. Professor harris has been teaching and inspiring students and working engineers in San Diego for over 45 years. I’m sure I speak for all my colleagues in San Diego when I thank him. I was fortunate to have David Hull as a mentor at my first job. David guided me through many of my first design tasks with skill and patience. I would frequently take his lab books home to study at night and return in the morning with a list of questions which he would cheerfully answer despite his busy schedule. I would also like to thank James Crawford who has been a mentor, a source of technical inspiration, and a valued friend for many years. I would like to thank all of my current colleagues, especially my good friends Jeff Babb, John Huebner, Steven Chuwang, Leon Huynh, and Kim Do, who all provided excellent feedback and personal encouragement throughout the project. Working with this great group always left me with plenty of energy and enthusiasm to write late into the night.