EECE 557: Electromagnetic Theory

Instructor: Ruth Douglas Miller, rdmiller@ksu.edu
Office hours: RA 2080,  Wednesday, Friday 1:30-3:00pm.  Please feel free to stop by whenever my office door is open.

Grader: Todd Petersen <t_h_petersen@yahoo.com>
Office hours: Tues/Thurs 10:30 am, RA 2079.

Texts:

Syllabus

Homework Assignments

Other Resources

Course Objectives and Description

The objective of this course is to convey the basic physical concepts that lie behind all electrical engineering--the interactions between charged particles, whether stationary or in motion. After a review of vector algebra, we will examine the electric and magnetic forces between stationary and steadily moving charged particles. Real-life examples of these forces in action include lightning, DC motors, xerographic copy machines, electrostatic discharges that destroy CMOS chips, cathode-ray tubes, cyclotrons, and magnetic levitation trains. Finally we'll discuss forces created by charges moving in a periodic manner, relating them to electromagnetic plane waves such as light and to transmission lines, whose operation may be described with circuit theory or electromagnetic theory. We will consider transmission lines both in integrated circuits and stand-alone, as in instrument probe leads and power lines.

Still wondering why you have to learn this? Todd Hubing, of the University of Missouri at Rolla, has at least one other reason. 

Attendance

You are responsible for material presented in lecture, including assigned reading and homework problems and any quizzes. I will not accept homework handed in outside class hours. Assignments will be posted on this web page as they are given. If you were not in class, I generally will not answer questions on material presented in class, unless you notified me beforehand (by phone, letter, e-mail or in person) that you could not attend.  Exams may be made up at mutually agreed-upon times, but only if you have notified me beforehand of an expected absence.  In the event of an emergency, one call to Dean Hightower's office will save you contacting all your professors.

Homework Policy

Problems will be assigned daily and are due for collection the following day.  Homework turned in to the office or placed in my mailbox will not be graded.  You are encouraged to work together on homework problems, so long as you do not simply copy--this will only hurt you on the exams. Reading will be assigned daily for the following day. Pop quizzes covering assigned reading may be held at any time. Questions will be qualitative, and easy if you have done the reading. I will not expect you to memorize equations.  Pop quiz points will count as homework.

Grading

Tentative: There will be three announced in-class hour-long exams, the average of these is 1/2 of your grade.  A cumulative final will be worth 1/3 of your grade. The cumulative average of homework and pop quizzes make up the last 1/6.

Academic Honesty

The Kansas State University Honor System is defined by the following Honor Code:

     KSU students will not give or receive aid in examinations; they will not give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports or in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading.
     KSU students will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor System.  This includes reporting an observed dishonesty.

I expect that engineering students in my classes, as engineers in training, will adhere to this Code as well as to the IEEE Code of Ethics where applicable.  Working together on homework problems is encouraged, but you are required to turn in your own solutions. Using "solutions manuals" to help you complete homework assignments, whether obtained on line, from frat files or anywhere else except directly from me, is not allowed for this class, so such use is a violation of the Honor Code.  I also require that you work alone on exams, and that you bring with you to the exam only such notes as I announce are permitted.  If you are ever unsure as to what collaboration is permitted or forbidden, please ask me!

Other Resources

I've put together study sheets for this class; they contain subjects I may not have covered this semester, so if a topic looks completely unfamiliar, check your notes!  

Honeywell has an entire "handbook" on Hall Effect Sensors, available as downloadable pdf files.

Smith Charts:
The first 4 below were created by Marshall Jose, JHU - Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD and intended for distribution as freeware.

Dr Winston Chan, formerly of the University of Iowa, makes available EM Theory applets demonstrating transmission line and wave effects.  *2007: I can't find these any more, but will keep trying to recover them.*

More interesting applets can be found at Paul Falstad's Math/Physics site.  For EM, look especially at the Electricity and Magnetism: Statics applets, and the 2-D Electrodynamics applet.

Here is an illustration of distortion of a plane wave or transmission line signal.

I made some little MathCAD movies showing standing wave reflection at different boundaries: dielectric-conductor (or short-circuit), dielectric-dielectric at with smaller and larger permittivity ratios, and "matched line": no boundary.  These should work with QuickTime or WindowsMedia.

Physics Web Virtual Lab maintains a list of all sorts of Java Applets demonstrating various physical phenomena.  Have fun!

The Ansoft Company makes software that computes both static and time-varying electromagnetic fields in various complicated geometries and circuits. They have some downloadable pictures and JPEG movies to impress you; they may help you see three-dimensional fields more easily.  Try the Maxwell 3D site for good demos to start with.

Last update: 16 January, 2008, by Ruth Douglas Miller