hi friends,
as a professional engineer i know what difficulties we engineers face during our academics and also during training in industries....out of all those one of the most prominent and dominant is to SOLVE ENGINEERING NUMERICAL PROBLEMS...though it is the most easiest task an engineer could ever do in his life the image of its non existing difficulty in solving it persists in the mind set which intern stops one even to attend it .
yesterday i was reading a book on ADVANCED THERMODYNAMICS by Yunus A. cenegal,Michael A.Boles one of the greatest book i have ever read.....
i came over a topic where the author as well by knowing the students problem has written a wonderful article in the book...so i thought of sharing this precious article with you guys.....
sentences are not exactly same as it is in the book rather below written is my understanding of what i have read......
the first step in learning any science is to grasp the fundamentals and to gain a sound knowledge of it. the next step is to master the fundamentals by testing this knowledge. this is done by solving significant real world problems. solving such problems, especially complicated ones,requires a systematic approach . by using a step by step approach, an engineer can reduce the solution of a complicated problem into the solution of a series of simple problems. when you are solving a problem , we recommend that you use the following steps zealously as applicable. this will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls associated with problem solving.
- PROBLEM STATEMENT
before solving the problem at least we need to know what actually we need to solve and what information do actually we have before trying to solve it as our tools to solve it .hence it becomes necessary to note down all given data in your own words and visualize the problem and make a clear pitcher of what is need to be solved
- DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION
draw the sketch according to your visualizations made in the previous step for all physical and non physical systems involved also it would be great if you list out all the relevant data on the fig .
you need not worry about the rules to draw those fig rather it should be clearly understood by any one and you as well without any confusion.mainly try to indicate the energy interactions involved in the system, system -surrounding, without the system. also take care of those properties that remain constant during the process as well which is many times the most important step...for many problems.
- TAKE CARE OF ALL THE RELATED ASSUMPTIONS
state any assumptions and approximations made to simplify the problem to make it possible to obtain a solution. justify the questionable assumptions. if sufficient data is missing try to assume it with some logic or from your previous experience e.g., in the absence of specific data for atmospheric pressure,it can be taken to be 1 atm. however, it should be noted in the analysis that the atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation.as ,it drops to 0.83 atm in dever(elevation 1610m)
- TAKE USE OF ALL RELATED PHYSICAL LAWS AND UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES
apply all the relevant basic physical laws and principles like say ..conservation of mass, and reduce them to their simplest form by utilizing the assumptions made. however, the region to which a physical lat is applied must be clearly identified first. for example, the increase in speed of water flowing through a nozzle is analyzed by applying conservation of mass between the inlet and outlet of the nozzle.
- UNKNOWNS AND SUBSTITUTIONS
find the unknown properties at known states necessary to solve the problem from property relations of tables.substitute the known quantities into the simplified relations and perform the calculations to determine the unknowns. pay particular attention to the units and unit cancellations, and remember that a dimensional quantity without a unit is meaningless. also, don't give a false implication of high precision by copying all the digits from the screen of the calculator....come on man you are not a junior school guy still...use your head and round the results to an ppropriate number of significant digits.
- ANALYSIS AND REMEMBERING WHAT YOU LEARNT
check to make sure that the results obtained are reasonable and intuitive, and verify the validity of the questionable assumption. repeat the calculations that resulted in unreasonable values .like say ... insulating a water heater that uses 3000 rupees of natural gas a year can't be savings.....
as while solving problem you might have obviously encountered so many situations where you were stuck and those are now the areas which you must practice more to over come it....you know when you face those challenges u ll realize that they were damn easy and what u were afraid of facing it and avoiding it was meaningless.....
at the end a small suggestion ...
keep in mind that the solutions you present to your instructors, and any engineering analysis presented to pthers, is a form of communication. therefore neatness, organization, completeness and visual appearance are pf utmost important for maximum effectiveness.
well...these steps are just a piece of guide for those who really are afraid of solving engineering problems....however you can just read carefully these steps and practice consistently and develop your intelligence every problem u solve....after attaining certain level of perfection you can find out your own way of solving problems....than difficulty level of the problem is just an another word...
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