An engineer's diary

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  1. [No. 58] Maxwell

    Almost exactly 10 years ago I made a ‘pilgrimage’ to visit the grave of James Clerk Maxwell at Parton Kirk in Dumfries and Galloway in the south-west of Scotland.

    • [No. 57] L and Linkage and Leakage

      Readers may have noticed that Engineer’s Diary has been trying to follow the alphabet in selecting monthly topics, and some letters provide more ideas than others.

      • [No. 56] Lèse-Majesté

        It is easy to imagine the IPM (interior permanent-magnet motor) as the monarch of electric motors. Indeed to question its supremacy could be said to be lèse-majesté.

        • [No. 55] L : Library

          A personal library can be a valuable asset. Before the internet, it was usually the first ‘port of call’, the first available source of reference material on engineering theory an…

          • [No. 54] K : Kron

            Last month the letter K failed to provide a ready supply of suitable electrical engineering topics for the Diary, so we borrowed the German term Kennlinie.

            • [No. 53] K : Kennlinie, ken-lines, and cissoids

              Progressing through the alphabet of electrical engineering topics, we come to the letter K, and for this Diary I have to say I had some difficulty finding a suitable topic beginni…

              • [No. 52] JMAG goes to work

                This new book is written for engineers concerned with the design and development of electric machines.

                • [No. 51] Current-density J

                  Next in alphabetic sequence is J — which could stand for 'JMAG' or 'JAPAN', but instead let us think of J as the common symbol for current-density. Sometimes when I think about c…

                  • [No. 50] Insulation

                    In this series of Engineer’s Diary, the topics are selected by following the letters of the alphabet, giving an almost random walk through the field of electrical engineering. ‘I’…

                    • [No. 49] Hair-pin winding

                      The hair-pin winding has become prominent in drive-train motors for electric and hybrid vehicles, with many creative examples in manufacturing. Although ‘push-through’ hair-pin co…

                      • [No. 48] Helical winding

                        The helical winding (Figs. 1 and 2) was originally examined as a candidate air-gap winding for large 2-pole superconducting alternators at International Research and Development C…

                        • [No. 47] Harmonic poles again — this time produced by the stator!

                          In Engineer’s Diary No. 46 we discussed the harmonic poles of a 2-pole rotary machine. ‘Harmonic poles’ refers to the space-harmonics of the flux distribution around the air-gap. …

                          • [No. 46] Harmonic poles

                            The number of poles is perhaps the most basic parameter in the design of an electric machine. When we speak of this parameter, we usually mean the number of working poles. Fig. 1 …

                            • [No. 45] Gaps

                              Fig. 1 shows a 2-pole IPM (interior permanent-magnet motor) that nobody would want to build. It has so many 'departures from the ideal', yet all of its imperfections can arise in …

                              • [No. 44] Frequency

                                The figure shows a sketch of the Epstein square that is used for the measurement of BH data of laminated core-plate in the form of strips arranged in a square with overlapping end…

                                • [No. 43] Exponential function and complex numbers in electrical engineering

                                  Euler [1707-1783] is closely associated with this equation which has been described as the most beautiful equation in mathematics. It is sometimes regarded as having mystical sign…

                                  PROFILE

                                  Prof. Miller was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Leeds, U.K., and served an industrial apprenticeship with Tube Investments Ltd. He worked for G.E.C. in the U.K. and General Electric in the United States. From 1986-2011 he was professor of electric power engineering at the university of Glasgow, where he founded the Scottish Power Electronics and Electric Drives Consortium. He has published more than 200 papers and 10 books and 10 patents, and he has given many training courses. He has consulted for several industrial companies in Europe, Japan and the United States. He is a Life Fellow of I.E.E.E. and in 2008 he was awarded the Nikola Tesla award.

                                  The Green Book: “Design of Brushless Permanent-Magnet Machines”

                                  The Blue Book: “Design Studies in Electric Machines” (June 30, 2022)