Engineering Mathematics Bridging Between Mathematical Theory

8/11/2019 Engineering Mathematics Bridging Between Mathematical Theory

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ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS: BRIDGING BETWEEN MATHEMATICALTHEORY AND ENGINEERING PRACTICE EXPERIENCE IN UTHM

Phang Chang Phang ~ i a uCentre o Science Studies, Universiti Tu n Hu ssein Onn Ma laysia

ABSTRACT

The objective o f reaching mu /he mu /ic s lo engineering srudenls is to Jn d the rightbalance betw een in-depth understand ing and praclical applications of mathemaricalequations. There are inslance s /h a / srudents are unable to utilize the mathema ticalknowledge they have learned in e ngineering fields. In /his paper, we discuss thisbalance and some pracrical wa ys of achieving it based on our experience as athemafician in the teaching of enginee ring mat hen ia~ ics o engineering students atUniversity Tun Husssein On n (UTH M). Here. our first ,focus is to discuss theinstruclional j?amework on how w e inlegrate th e modelin g of elenlentary electricalcircuit systems into Engineering Malhemalics in the Faculty of Electrical andElectronic since 20041'05 academic session. Studen ts' response will be shown. On topoft ha t, our second focus is to present dtf er en t ways on how to handle engineeringmathe ma/ics proble n?s, or exam ple in elementary c ircuit analysis, ngalhenzaticians willderive the Ordinary Differen~ialEquations first, bul eleclrical engineers converl [h eRLC circuil to doma in-s wh ere by bolh are mathe matica lly equivalenr . Besides that,h i s arlicle offers plenty of relevan1 examples including algebraic method and residuen~elhodn partial fraction, dfle ren l w uj ~so obtain Fourier series expansion and so on.Through this, we hope to reduce the gap beiween mathem atical iheory and engineeringpracrice amon g undergraduate e nginee ring students.

Keywords: Engineering mathematics

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Undoubtedly, proficiency in mathematics is a fundamental necessity for anysuccessful engineer. Th e Board of Engineer, Ma laysia BEM ) in its accreditationmanual, mentioned that mathematics subjects should be studied to a level necessary tounderpin the engineering subjects of the course and with a bias towards applicationnteaching.

In undergraduate engineering courses, there are many attempts to make the

engineering students more proficient in mathematics. Implementation of problem-basedlearning and usage of mathem atical p ackages a re fe w wa ys that receive an increasingattention in many of the engineering colleges in Malaysia. Another approach which iswidely being used in other countries is integrating modelling skills to the futureengineers. Huang 2005) mentioned that mathem atical modelling has alwa ys been animportant activity in science and engineering education. By doing this, hopefully,students are able to transfera problem in the real world to a mathematical problem andsolve it analytically or numerically. The process is so-called mathematical modelling.Here, our first focus is discuss the instructional framework on how we integratingmodelling elementary electrical circuit systems into Engineering Mathematics in

The authorow

auached lo Dcpartrnento f

Compula t~ona l c ~ c n c end Mathematics, Facultyo r

Computer Sc~enccndInformalion Technology Unlversirl Malaysia Sarmrak 94300 Kota Samarahan. Sarawak


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6 0 REFEREN ES

Board of Engineer Malaysia 2002). Engineering Programme Accreditation Manu al.p60.

Erwin K. 1999) A dvanced Engineering Mathem atics. 81h Edition. New York: JohnWiley Sons, Inc.Charles K.A . and M.N.O. Sadiku 2007).Fundam entals of electric circuits 3rd

Edition.Boston: McGraw-Hill.Ham id Chaa choua and Ayse Sa glam 2004) Mode lling by differential Equations. In e-

books of 1 lh International Congress on Mathematical Education, Copenhagen.http://www.icme-organisers.dMtsg20/Chaachoua-Saglam.pdf

Huang, D. F. 2005). An Objective-Oriented Approach for Teaching the Electricalcircuit System Modelling. iCEER-2005.

Joshua M.P. and Anthony T.C. 2005). An Instructional Framework forintroducingWavelet-Based Problem Solving Techniques to Advanced Civil EngineeringStudents. Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering EducationAnnual Conference Exposition. American Society for Engineering E ducation

Melvin A.Ny man and John B. 2002). Deve loping Transferable skills in undergraduatemathematics students through mathematical modeling. Teaching Mathematics andits Applications. Vol. 21, No.1; p29 45

Mohd Najid 1998). Penyelidikan Pe ndidikan. Skudai: Penerbit Universiti TeknologiMalaysia. p109

Ola Royrvik 2002). Teaching Electrical Engineering Using Maple . Int. J. of ElectricalEngineering Educ ation. Manc hester: Vol. 39, iss. 4, p297-310.

Sazhin 1 998). Teaching Mathema tics to Engineering Stude nts. Int. J. Eng Edu , Vol. 14;No . 2, p145-152

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Engineering Mathematics Bridging Between Mathematical Theory