First year engineering mathematics

PlacidCasual · 17 Jan 2007 at 19:45

Check out the University library. They probably have exam questions and sample answers going back 10 or more years. That used to be my source of practice questions when I did engineering maths. *shudders*

House · 17 Jan 2007 at 20:10

Chemical engineering and I work for a major chemical engineering contractor.

Well Im more a project person these days so I don't do allot of first principle engineering, but even when i graduated allot of the stuff I had to learn was way beyond what I used for design work.

Unless I had gone into pure research I can't see how allot of the stuff I did would be any use. Ok so some of the Tech boys who do the real brain trust stuff at ours probally use it but they are way more than degree educated.

Depends on what field your in I guess..

Meridian · 17 Jan 2007 at 20:25

geuben said:
a book by K.A.Stroud called engineering mathematics.

The best of them all. Easy to understand and use, and pretty comprehensive. There's a second one for year two as well (probably the one KaHn mentions). If all text books were that good I'd probably have finished my Aero Eng degree...

M

xsnv · 17 Jan 2007 at 20:27

House said:
Oh btw you guys do all know once you graduate you will rarely if every use that maths again?

90% of it is just to keep maths teachers employeed and give you sleepless nights over exams..

He's actually right guys. It's funny but the better you are at your job the less maths you end up doing - for chemical engineers anyway. The more successfull you are the less numerical analysis you need to do.

panthro · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:29

AJUK said:
I still have my copy of Engineering Mathematics by K A Stroud on my bookshelf above my desk.

7 Years on and I still have that badboy on the bookshelf

panthro · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:30

xsnv said:
He's actually right guys. It's funny but the better you are at your job the less maths you end up doing - for chemical engineers anyway. The more successfull you are the less numerical analysis you need to do.

Depends what kind of chemical engineering you do.

Arcade Fire · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:34

xsnv said:
He's actually right guys. It's funny but the better you are at your job the less maths you end up doing - for chemical engineers anyway. The more successfull you are the less numerical analysis you need to do.

Isn't that just because the more succesful you are, the more promotions you get, and thus the more your work focuses to management rather than technical work?

panthro · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:38

Arcade Fire said:
Isn't that just because the more succesful you are, the more promotions you get, and thus the more your work focuses to management rather than technical work?

Thats not true. Most of the senior chemical/process engineers in my company still use all their technical skill and know how everyday, and these guys are getting paid well over £70 an hour. People can choose to go the management route and steer clear of the engineering, and some people choose to stay as engineers as its what they enjoy doing. I am the former

xsnv · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:43

Arcade Fire said:
Isn't that just because the more succesful you are, the more promotions you get, and thus the more your work focuses to management rather than technical work?

Exactlly.

xsnv · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:47

panthro said:
Thats not true. Most of the senior chemical/process engineers in my company still use all their technical skill and know how everyday, and these guys are getting paid well over £70 an hour. People can choose to go the management route and steer clear of the engineering, and some people choose to stay as engineers as its what they enjoy doing. I am the former

Aha! technical skill and know how isn't taught at university though is it? when last did you you use bernoulli's equation to calculate the pressure drop in a pipe? When last did you specify the minimum reflux ratio to achieve a given seperation with a fixed number of plates?

What you know are the principles behind these phenomena...not the 85% number crunching that exams usually are. These days we have computer packages that do most of *** complex iterations etc for us.

You obvious need the numeracy skills all i'm saying is you don't use complex numbers of fourier analysis as part of your job. Unless of course you're a design engineer...

panthro · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:56

xsnv said:
Aha! technical skill and know how isn't taught at university though is it? when last did you you use bernoulli's equation to calculate the pressure drop in a pipe? When last did you specify the minimum reflux ratio to achieve a given seperation with a fixed number of plates?

What you know are the principles behind these phenomena...not the 85% number crunching that exams usually are. These days we have computer packages that do most of *** complex iterations etc for us.

You obvious need the numeracy skills all i'm saying is you don't use complex numbers of fourier analysis as part of your job. Unless of course you're a design engineer...

Ha, I used Fourier Analysis (FFT to be precise) on some instrumentation work I did when I was doing rotation roles at my company.

There are a lot of programs etc these days that will do it all for you, but things like pump calcs, etc most of those are done by the engineer. Dont know why, Im not in process engineering.

daz · 17 Jan 2007 at 21:57

Boas book is definitely helpful. The book basically covered the syllabus for our maths modules last year.

xsnv · 17 Jan 2007 at 22:00

panthro said:
Ha, I used Fourier Analysis (FFT to be precise) on some instrumentation work I did when I was doing rotation roles at my company.

There are a lot of programs etc these days that will do it all for you, but things like pump calcs, etc most of those are done by the engineer. Dont know why, Im not in process engineering.

Damn, shoud have said laplace transforms! Really? I'm quite surprised. Where I work they hire "technicians" and "technologists" to do most of that sort of work. Hmm...ah well.

Gavstar · 17 Jan 2007 at 22:54

Another vote for Stroud, it's possibly the best textbook that I've ever used. I wish I'd realised that before I quit my Mech Eng degree! All worked out in the end though.

-Ad- · 18 Jan 2007 at 00:06

AJUK said:
I still have my copy of Engineering Mathematics by K A Stroud on my bookshelf above my desk.

yup me too. good stuff

Kreeeee · 18 Jan 2007 at 00:15

AJUK said:
I still have my copy of Engineering Mathematics on my bookshelf above my desk.

Same here. I never touched it once!

House · 18 Jan 2007 at 00:40

Fourier Analysis still makes me come out in a cold sweat.

I came this close to failing my degree cause of that rubish i just couldnt grasp it, I still don't know how i passed the exam at the final resit (after all my finals exams and design project it was the last thing i had to do).

If I think about it my life would have been very very different if I hadn't passed but I have never used it since...

its been a long time since I've done any design work, most of my work these days its time, money, process economics and risk analysis which requires numeracy rather than mathamatics but i enjoy it more than I used to sizing valves, pumps, and S&T exchangers.