Engineers Guide to MATLAB, An - Softcover

Magrab, Edward; Azarm, Shapour; Balachandran, Balakumar; Herold, Keith; Walsh, Gregory

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0131991108 ISBN 13: 9780131991101

Publisher: Pearson, 2010

Synopsis

An Engineer's Guide to MATLAB, 3/e, is an authoritative guide to generating readable, compact, and verifiably correct MATLAB programs. It is ideal for undergraduate engineering courses in Mechanical, Aeronautical, Civil, and Electrical engineering that require/use MATLAB.

 

This highly respected guide helps students develop a strong working knowledge of MATLAB that can be used to solve a wide range of engineering problems. Since solving these problems usually involves writing relatively short, one-time-use programs, the authors demonstrate how to effectively develop programs that are compact yet readable, easy to debug, and quick to execute. Emphasis is on using MATLAB to obtain solutions to several classes of engineering problems, so technical material is presented in summary form only.

 

The new edition has been thoroughly revised and tested for software release 2009.

 

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Magrab is Emeritus Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. His research interests include the integration of design and manufacturing, vibrations and acoustics, and the theoretical and experimental analysis of structural systems. Prior to joining the University of Maryland he held supervisory positions in the Center for Manufacturing Engineering, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which included being the head of the Robot Metrology Group and manager of the vertical machining workstation in the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility. He went to NIST after being a professor for almost a decade in the Department of Mechanics at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC. Dr. Magrab is a Life Fellow in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a registered professional engineer in Maryland.  He has authored seven textbooks and published numerous journal articles. He holds one patent.

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PREFACE

The primary goal of this book is to guide the reader in developing a strong working knowledge of MATLAB to solve engineering problems. Typically, solving these problems involves writing relatively short, one-time-use programs. Therefore, in this book we attempt to teach how to effectively develop such programs in MATLAB, ones that are compact, yet readable, are easy to debug, and execute fast.

The first seven chapters of the book are intended for use in a sophomore/junior level class that introduces programming and the use of computer languages in engineering. In the remaining seven chapters we present applications of MATLAB to a wide range of engineering topics. The emphasis of the book is on using MATLAB to obtain solutions to several classes of engineering problems, not the technical subject matter per se. Therefore, the technical material is presented in summary form only and no attempt has been made to present the basic material in each of these topic areas. The book also can be used in the following ways: (1) as a companion book to junior, senior and graduate level textbooks in engineering; (2) as a reference book for obtaining numerical solutions to a wide range of engineering problems, and; (3) as a source of applications of a wide variety of MATLAB solution techniques.

Engineering programming applications are typically used to do the following: (1) analyze a predictive model, such as an algebraic equation, an ordinary or partial differential equation or an approximation to these; (2) obtain statistical inferences from data; (3) visualize a model or data to enhance one's understanding; (4) either verify or obtain an empirical model from experimental results; and (5) monitor/control/analyze external events. In this book all but the last application are addressed.

The presentation of the material in this book is made with the assumption that the reader can employ the engineering approach to problem solving; that is, one that uses approximate mathematical models to predict the response of elements, devices, and systems. This approach also requires that one have a good comprehension of the physical problem so that he or she can tell when the model's results are correct, or at least reasonable. These qualities are an important prerequisite to creating programs that function correctly. The book also assumes that the reader is moderately fluent in calculus and engineering mathematics.

The first seven chapters are devoted to the introduction of MATLAB, where vector and matrix notation and definitions are introduced immediately and their fundamental importance to using MATLAB effectively is demonstrated. Numerous examples and detailed explanations are used to proceed through the material. The scripts and functions used to solve the example problems emphasize the employment of a relatively small number of readable MATLAB expressions to generate primarily graphical presentations of the results. This approach reinforces the importance of the vector/matrix formulations and the advantages of the resulting compactness of the code. Many of the example problems have been selected to illustrate the graphical presentation of data.

The approach used in the first seven chapters is then applied in the remaining seven chapters, each of which presents the application of MATLAB solution methods and toolboxes to classes of problems in the following areas: design of machine elements, dynamics and vibrations, controls, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, optimization, and engineering statistics. The material in these chapters is illustrated by numerous MATLAB solutions to classes of problems, and includes brief discussions of the program listings and their results. Each chapter provides exercises for which many of the solutions require annotated two or three-dimensional figures.

The MATLAB scripts and functions developed throughout the book use the most appropriate MATLAB function to obtain the numerical results and they have been verified to work correctly through version 5.3 (Release 11). We assume that the reader has access to all functions demonstrated. Furthermore, we have tried to keep to a minimum much of the detailed information that is readily available from the on-line help files. However, for a number of frequently used functions and for many functions in the toolboxes we have included a sufficient amount of information so that the reader can clearly determine what equations the functions solve and how the numerical method represented by the function can be used. In addition, several of the chapters use MATLAB's controls, statistics, optimization and partial differential equation toolboxes, thereby extending the traditional range of the types of problems usually examined. Furthermore, we present solution techniques that take advantage of MATLAB's numerical procedures where practical, as opposed to first obtaining algebraic solutions and then programming them.

Several preliminary versions of the book have been used over the last five semesters in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Maryland, both in an introductory MATLAB course and as companion material in junior and senior level courses in vibrations, controls, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, optimization, solid mechanics, and engineering statistics. The authors have found that with a good working knowledge of MATLAB they could expand the type of realistic engineering problems that could be examined in these classes, and they have frequently marveled at the relative ease with which these solutions could be obtained. We hope that the reader will also reap the rewards of applying MATLAB to determine the solutions to his or her engineering problems.

E. B. Magrab
S. Azarm
B. Balachandran
J. H. Duncan
K. E. Herold
G. C. Walsh

College Park, MD
March 2000

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0131991108
• ISBN 13: 9780131991101
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 848