Featured AMCAT Module: Electrical Engineering
About the Module
The Electrical Engineering module has been designed to assess a candidate's concepts in electrical and electronic circuits. The module is meant for B. Tech students who may be freshers or the students who may be exposed to industry for one to two years. The module checks for the concepts which would be used by the engineers in everyday working. The module consists of both conceptual and practical aspects of the subject.
The module comprehensively covers the following topics –
Basic electrical engineering: Calculating currents and voltages in a multi loop electric circuit can be complex. Thorough knowledge of network graphs, Kirchhoff's Current Law, Kirchhoff's Voltage Law, node and mesh analysis helps in the study and design of complex electrical networks. The basic electrical measurements of currents and voltages along with the associated safety are of great importance in many electrical projects.
Electrical machines: Electrical machines which were used earlier relied heavily on permanent magnets; even the best magnetic materials were only capable of providing a weak magnetic field. The use of electromagnets in the recent times enabled many practical applications of electrical machines which were earlier restricted to mere laboratory experiments. Electrical machines like single phase transformer, three - phase transformer, auto-transformer; three – phase induction motors, principles of energy conversion are often used in many electrical applications. Some of the other electrical machines which are a part of almost every practical application are the D.C machines - D.C motors and generators.
Power system: The application of solid-state electronics (circuits and devices that are built entirely from solid materials) for the conversion and control of electricity is what is said to be power electronics. Basic concepts of power generation, transmission line models and their performance, cable performance; power factor correction are the topics that are tested to check the suitability of a candidate to work in the power sector.
Control system: Generally considered as a sub-field of electrical engineering, a control system is a device or set of devices that regulate the behaviour of other systems. The concepts of control system are often used in control design strategies for improving the manufacturing processes. Since modern day control processes include complex and interrelated systems, students should be aware of the concepts of principles of feedback; transfer function; steady-state errors; Routh and Nyquist techniques; Bode plots; root loci; state space model; controllability and observability.
Instruments and measurements: Methods of measurement of various electrical parameters like current, voltage, energy through the use of ammeter, potentiometer, digital voltmeter and multimeter, calculation of power factor using Q-meters are widely used in many of the practical applications at work. The candidate is tested whether he/he possess thorough knowledge of instruments and measurement of parameters like phase, time and frequency; errors arising in measurement and its analysis.
Analog & Digital Electronics: Concepts like characteristics of diodes, transistors - Bipolar Junction Transistors and Field Effect Transistor; applications of amplifier, oscillator; feedback amplifiers; operational amplifiers and filters are widely used in the designing, testing and trouble shooting of analog and digital circuits of medium and high complexity.
Other analog and digital devices that are commonly used in many practical applications are the Voltage Controlled Oscillators and timers; combinational and sequential logic circuits; multiplexer; Schmitt trigger; multi-vibrators; Analog to Digital and Digital to Analog converters.
Power electronics: The latest developments in power electronics based on some of the breaking innovations in semiconductor technology has led to innovative technologies such as High Voltage DC Transmission (HVDC) and Flexible AC Transmission System (FACTS) which find their application in transmission and distribution systems. With the use of semiconductor devices like power diodes, Gate Turn-off Thrusters (GTO), MOSFETs and Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT), HVDC and FACTS now act as an alternative to long distance AC transmission. Knowledge of phase controlled rectifiers; bridge convertors often find their practical applications at work.
Some tips to improve:
- Pay attention to the Basics: It may not sound important, but most of the students lack basic concepts of circuit theory - KCL, KVL, concept of active and passive components, building blocks of electronic systems and fault-finding techniques. Strong fundamentals will help you to understand complex circuits and machinery that you may get exposed to after joining the industry.
- Get trained to get an edge: The curriculum may not provide you all the concepts you require for the industry. Moreover the lab experiments carried out at the college level are often performed on the ready-made kits which do not provide enough exposure of the electrical equipments. Taking up a project or an internship in a company within power sector provides plenty of learning opportunities and valuable practical experience.
- Know the industry trend: The power sector is a huge industry. There are multiple sub-disciplines. Even some of the software disciplines would require one to have a sound knowledge of electronics and electrical equipments along with knowledge on programming. Subscribing to insightful trade media journals and newsletters would keep you abreast to the industry trends and latest developments in electrical engineering.
