Spreadsheets in Electromagnetics Education: Coupled Problems with Graphical Post-processing

摘要

This paper revives the use of spreadsheets and demonstrates that with the new graphical capabilities built into spreadsheets, they can present extensive views of the abstract field. The methodology couples the graphing and cell-coloring capabilities of modern spreadsheets to show how graphs of potentials and color maps of scalar and vector fields can be produced. Further, the ability to link one spreadsheet to another, permits the exploitation of coupled field problems. These abilities are combined with some rudimentary Visual Basic programming to produce the required graphical depictions of the field. The problem of making the use of these spreadsheets less difficult remains because of the need to program the spreadsheets. This is somewhat ameliorated by the instructor giving the required program to students. Alternatively the electromagnetics class may be used in an integrated curriculum to reinforce programming concepts from other classes.