Engineering Problem Solving with C by Delores M. Etter, D. M. Etter, Jeanine A. Ingber, Jeanine A. Ingber

From the Publisher

In this revision of a popular book, the best-selling author provides a new theme for the real-world engineering and scientific examples and problems used throughout the book. Solutions to the problems are developed using the language C and the author's signature five-step problem solving process. Centered around a theme of oceans and their role in the complex interactions of environment, the book enables readers to solve real-world and scientific problems. Four types of exercises are presented to develop problem-solving skills - Practice! problems, Modify! problems, Short-Answer problems, and Programming problems. Coverage of essential features that are needed to write reusable C code are included such as C structures and pointers. The book also provides an introduction to object-oriented programming and C++. For engineers and scientists who want to use ANSI C to solve practical engineering and scientific problems.

Booknews

A textbook for engineering students that introduces engineering problem solving with computer programs. It's three major objectives are to develop a consistent methodology for solving problems, to present the fundamental capabilities of the computer language C, and to present a variety of engineering examples and applications. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

Preface

Engineers use computers to solve a variety of problems ranging from the evaluation of a simple function to solving a system of nonlinear equations. C has become the language of choice of many engineers and scientists not only because it has powerful commands and data structures, but also because it can easily be used for system-level operations. Since C is the language that a new engineer is most likely to encounter in a job, it is a good choice for an introduction to computing for engineers. Therefore, this text was written to introduce engineering problem solving with the following objectives:

• to develop a consistent methodology for solving engineering problems,
• to present the fundamental capabilities of C, the language of choice of many practicing engineers and scientists, and
• to illustrate the problem solving process with C through a variety of engineering examples and applications.

To accomplish these objectives, Chapter 1 presents a five-step process that is used consistently in the rest of the text for solving engineering problems. Chapters 2-7 present the fundamental capabilities of C for solving engineering problems. Chapter 8 is a brief introduction to Object-Oriented Programming using C++. Object-oriented programming is gaining popularity in many fields of engineering and science and is likely to be seen in the workplace. Chapter 8 is intended to familiarize readers with some of the basic object-oriented features of C++. Throughout all these chapters, we present a large number of examples from many different engineering and science disciplines. Thesolutionsto these examples are developed using the five-step process and ANSI C (and ANSI C++ in Chapter 8), the standards developed by the American National Standards Institute.

CHANGES TO THE SECOND EDITION

This second edition is in response to the insightful comments of our readers and reviewers. It includes a reorganization of some topics and the addition of new topics. The second edition moves the discussion of character data up to Chapter 2 and moves the discussion of character strings up to Chapter 5. Two new chapters have been added to the text; a chapter on structures and a chapter introducing the C++ programming language. We have added a new section of problems, titled Exam Practice! to the end of each chapter and have added new end-of-chapter exercises to many of the chapters. New engineering application problems, including simulation, image processing, and complex numbers, have been added to the text, as well as additional numerical techniques, including the Newton-Raphson method and numerical integration using the Trapezoid Rule. New algorithms include the sequential search and the binary search. Our objectives and our approach to engineering problem solving remain the same.

PREREQUISITES

No prior experience with the computer is assumed. The mathematical prerequisites are college algebra and trigonometry. Of course, the initial material can be covered much faster if the student has used other computer languages or software tools.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The material in these chapters was selected to provide the basis for a one-term course in engineering computing. These chapters contain the essential topics of mathematical computations, character data, control structures, functions, arrays, pointers, and structures. Students with background in another computer language should be able to complete this material in less than a semester. A minimal course that provides only an introduction to C can be designed using the nonoptional sections of the text. (Optional sections are indicated in the Contents.) Three ways to use the text, along with the recommended chapter sections, are

• Introduction to C Many freshman introductory courses introduce the student to several computer tools in addition to an introduction to a language. For these courses, we recommend covering the nonoptional sections of Chapters 1-5. This material introduces students to the fundamental capabilities of C, and they will be able to write substantial programs using mathematical computations, character data, control structures, functions, and arrays.
• Problem Solving with C In a semester course devoted specifically to teaching students to master the C language, we recommend covering all nonoptional sections of Chapters 1-7. This material covers all the fundamental concepts of the C language, including mathematical computations, character data, control structures, functions, arrays, pointers, and structures.
• Problem Solving with C and Numerical Techniques Upper-level students or students who are already familiar with other high-level languages will be able to cover the material in this text very quickly. In addition, they will be able to apply the numerical technique material to their other courses. Therefore, we recommend that these students cover all sections of Chapters 1-7, including the optional material.

Many students may be interested in reading about some of the additional object-oriented features found in C++. We recommend that students cover all nonoptional sections of Chapters 1-7 before reading Chapter 8.

PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODOLOGY

The emphasis on engineering and scientific problem solving is an integral part of the text. Chapter 1 introduces a five-step process for solving engineering problems using the computer:

1. State the problem clearly. 2. Describe the input and output information. 3. Work a simple example by hand. 4. Develop an algorithm and convert it to a computer program. 5. Test the solution with a variety of data.

To reinforce the development of problem-solving skills, each of these five steps is clearly identified each time that a complete engineering problem is solved. In addition, top-down design and stepwise refinement are presented with the use of decomposition outlines, pseudocode, and flowcharts.

ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS

Throughout the text, emphasis is placed on incorporating real-world engineering and scientific examples and problems. This emphasis is centered around a theme of grand challenges, which include the following:

• prediction of weather, climate, and global change
• computerized speech understanding
• mapping of the human genome
• improvements in vehicle performance
• enhanced oil and gas recovery
• simulation

Each chapter begins with a photograph and a discussion of some aspect of one of these grand challenges that provides a glimpse of some of the exciting and interesting areas in which engineers might work. Later in the chapter, we solve a problem that not only relates to the introductory problem, but also has applications in other problem solutions. The grand challenges are also referenced in many of the other examples and problems.

ANSI C

The statements presented and all programs developed use the C standards developed by the American National Standards Institute. By using ANSI C, students learn to write portable code that can be transferred from one computer platform to another. Many of the capabilities are discussed in the text, and additional ones are discussed in Appendix A.

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CONCEPTS

Engineers and scientists are expected to develop and implement user-friendly and reusable computer solutions. Learning software engineering techniques is therefore crucial to successfully developing these computer solutions. Readability and documentation are stressed in the development of programs. Additional topics that relate to software engineering issues are discussed throughout the text and include issues such as software life cycle, portability, maintenance, modularity, recursion, abstraction, reusability, structured programming, validation, and verification.

FOUR TYPES OF PROBLEMS

Learning any new skill requires practice at a number of different levels of difficulty. We have developed four types of exercises that are used throughout the text to develop problem-solving skills. The first set of exercises is Practice! problems. These are short-answer questions that relate to the section of material just presented. Most sections are immediately followed by a set of Practice! problems so that students can determine if they are ready to continue to the next section. Complete solutions to all the Practice! problems are included at the end of the text.

The Modify! problems are designed to provide hands-on experiences with the programs developed in the Problem Solving Applied sections. In these sections, we develop a complete C program using the five-step process. The Modify! problems ask students to run the program with different sets of data to test their understanding of how the program works and of the relationships among the engineering variables. These exercises also ask the students to make simple modifications to the program and then run the program to test their changes. Selected solutions to some of the Modify! problems are included at the end of the text.

Each chapter ends with a set of Exam Practice! problems and a set of end-of-chapter problems. The Exam Practice! problems are short-answer questions that relate to the material covered in the chapter. These problems help students determine how well they understand the features of C presented in the chapter. The end-of-chapter problems are new problems that relate to a variety of engineering applications, and the level of difficulty ranges from very straightforward to longer project assignments. Each problem requires that the student develop a complete C program or function. Engineering data sets are included for many of the problems to use in testing. Selected solutions to some of the Exam Practice! and end-of-chapter problems are included at the end of the text.

STUDY AND PROGRAMMING AIDS

Margin notes are used to help the reader not only identify the important concepts, but also to easily locate specific topics. In addition, margin notes are used to identify programming style guidelines and debugging information. Style guidelines show students how to write C programs that incorporate good software discipline; debugging sections help students recognize common errors so that they can avoid them.

The programming style notes are indicated with the margin note ,I>Style, and the debugging notes are indicated with a bug icon. Each Chapter Summary contains a summary of the style notes and debugging notes, plus a list of the Key Terms from the chapter and a C Statement Summary of the new statements to make the book easier to use as a reference. The combined list of these key terms, along with their definitions, is included in a Glossary at the end of the text.

OPTIONAL NUMERICAL TECHNIQUES

Numerical techniques that are commonly used in solving engineering problems are also discussed in optional sections in the chapters, and include interpolation, linear modeling (regression), root finding, numerical integration, and the solution to simultaneous equations. The concept of a matrix is also introduced and then illustrated using a number of examples. All of these topics are presented assuming only a trigonometry and college algebra background.

MATLAB AND VISUALIZATION

The visualization of the information related to a problem and its solution is a critical component in understanding and developing the intuition necessary to be a creative engineer. Therefore, we have included a number of plots of data throughout the text to illustrate the relationships of the information needed to solve specific problems. All the plots were generated using MATLAB, a powerful environment for numerical computations, data analysis, and visualization. We have also included an appendix that shows how to generate a simple plot from data that have been stored in an ASCII data file; this ASCII file could be generated with a word processor or it could be generated by a C program. If a course is planned that will include material on both C and MATLAB, a special package that includes this text and Engineering Problem Solving with MATLAB is available from Prentice Hall.

APPENDICES

To further enhance reference use, the appendices include a number of important topics. Appendix A contains a discussion of the components in the ANSI C Standard Library. Appendix B presents the ASCII character codes. Appendix C shows how to use MATLAB to plot data from ASCII files; this allows students to generate ASCII files with their C programs and to then plot the values using MATLAB. Finally, Appendix D contains a list of references used throughout the text.

INSTRUCTOR'S RESOURCE CD

An Instructor's Resource CD is available, which contains complete solutions to all the Modify! problems and end-of-chapter problems, as well as data files to use with application problems. A complete set of Power Point slides is included to assist the instructor in preparing lecture material.

NONTECHNICAL SKILLS

The engineer of the 21st century needs many skills and capabilities in addition to the technical ones learned in an engineering program. In Chapter 1 we present a brief discussion on some of these nontechnical skills that are so important to engineers. Specifically, we discuss developing both oral and written communications skills, understanding the design/process/manufacture path that takes an idea and leads to a product, working in interdisciplinary teams, understanding the world and its marketplace, the importance of synthesis as well as analysis, and the importance of ethics and other societal concerns in engineering solutions. While this text is devoted primarily to teaching problem solving skills and the C language, we have attempted to tie these other nontechnical topics into many of the problems and discussions in the text.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

Engineers use computers to solve a variety of problems ranging from the evaluation of a simple function to solving a system of nonlinear equations. C has become the language of choice of many engineers and scientists not only because it has powerful commands and data structures, but also because it can easily be used for system-level operations. Since C is the language that a new engineer is most likely to encounter in a job, it is a good choice for an introduction to computing for engineers. Therefore, this text was written to introduce engineering problem solving with the following objectives:

• to develop a consistent methodology for solving engineering problems,
• to present the fundamental capabilities of C, the language of choice of many practicing engineers and scientists, and
• to illustrate the problem solving process with C through a variety of engineering examples and applications.

To accomplish these objectives, Chapter 1 presents a five-step process that is used consistently in the rest of the text for solving engineering problems. Chapters 2-7 present the fundamental capabilities of C for solving engineering problems. Chapter 8 is a brief introduction to Object-Oriented Programming using C++. Object-oriented programming is gaining popularity in many fields of engineering and science and is likely to be seen in the workplace. Chapter 8 is intended to familiarize readers with some of the basic object-oriented features of C++. Throughout all these chapters, we present a large number of examples from many different engineering and science disciplines. The solutionsto these examples are developed using the five-step process and ANSI C (and ANSI C++ in Chapter 8), the standards developed by the American National Standards Institute.

CHANGES TO THE SECOND EDITION

This second edition is in response to the insightful comments of our readers and reviewers. It includes a reorganization of some topics and the addition of new topics. The second edition moves the discussion of character data up to Chapter 2 and moves the discussion of character strings up to Chapter 5. Two new chapters have been added to the text; a chapter on structures and a chapter introducing the C++ programming language. We have added a new section of problems, titled Exam Practice! to the end of each chapter and have added new end-of-chapter exercises to many of the chapters. New engineering application problems, including simulation, image processing, and complex numbers, have been added to the text, as well as additional numerical techniques, including the Newton-Raphson method and numerical integration using the Trapezoid Rule. New algorithms include the sequential search and the binary search. Our objectives and our approach to engineering problem solving remain the same.

PREREQUISITES

No prior experience with the computer is assumed. The mathematical prerequisites are college algebra and trigonometry. Of course, the initial material can be covered much faster if the student has used other computer languages or software tools.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The material in these chapters was selected to provide the basis for a one-term course in engineering computing. These chapters contain the essential topics of mathematical computations, character data, control structures, functions, arrays, pointers, and structures. Students with background in another computer language should be able to complete this material in less than a semester. A minimal course that provides only an introduction to C can be designed using the nonoptional sections of the text. (Optional sections are indicated in the Contents.) Three ways to use the text, along with the recommended chapter sections, are

• Introduction to C Many freshman introductory courses introduce the student to several computer tools in addition to an introduction to a language. For these courses, we recommend covering the nonoptional sections of Chapters 1-5. This material introduces students to the fundamental capabilities of C, and they will be able to write substantial programs using mathematical computations, character data, control structures, functions, and arrays.
• Problem Solving with C In a semester course devoted specifically to teaching students to master the C language, we recommend covering all nonoptional sections of Chapters 1-7. This material covers all the fundamental concepts of the C language, including mathematical computations, character data, control structures, functions, arrays, pointers, and structures.
• Problem Solving with C and Numerical Techniques Upper-level students or students who are already familiar with other high-level languages will be able to cover the material in this text very quickly. In addition, they will be able to apply the numerical technique material to their other courses. Therefore, we recommend that these students cover all sections of Chapters 1-7, including the optional material.

Many students may be interested in reading about some of the additional object-oriented features found in C++. We recommend that students cover all nonoptional sections of Chapters 1-7 before reading Chapter 8.

PROBLEM-SOLVING METHODOLOGY

The emphasis on engineering and scientific problem solving is an integral part of the text. Chapter 1 introduces a five-step process for solving engineering problems using the computer:

1. State the problem clearly. 2. Describe the input and output information. 3. Work a simple example by hand. 4. Develop an algorithm and convert it to a computer program. 5. Test the solution with a variety of data.

To reinforce the development of problem-solving skills, each of these five steps is clearly identified each time that a complete engineering problem is solved. In addition, top-down design and stepwise refinement are presented with the use of decomposition outlines, pseudocode, and flowcharts.

ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS

Throughout the text, emphasis is placed on incorporating real-world engineering and scientific examples and problems. This emphasis is centered around a theme of grand challenges, which include the following:

• prediction of weather, climate, and global change
• computerized speech understanding
• mapping of the human genome
• improvements in vehicle performance
• enhanced oil and gas recovery
• simulation

Each chapter begins with a photograph and a discussion of some aspect of one of these grand challenges that provides a glimpse of some of the exciting and interesting areas in which engineers might work. Later in the chapter, we solve a problem that not only relates to the introductory problem, but also has applications in other problem solutions. The grand challenges are also referenced in many of the other examples and problems.

ANSI C

The statements presented and all programs developed use the C standards developed by the American National Standards Institute. By using ANSI C, students learn to write portable code that can be transferred from one computer platform to another. Many of the capabilities are discussed in the text, and additional ones are discussed in Appendix A.

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CONCEPTS

Engineers and scientists are expected to develop and implement user-friendly and reusable computer solutions. Learning software engineering techniques is therefore crucial to successfully developing these computer solutions. Readability and documentation are stressed in the development of programs. Additional topics that relate to software engineering issues are discussed throughout the text and include issues such as software life cycle, portability, maintenance, modularity, recursion, abstraction, reusability, structured programming, validation, and verification.

FOUR TYPES OF PROBLEMS

Learning any new skill requires practice at a number of different levels of difficulty. We have developed four types of exercises that are used throughout the text to develop problem-solving skills. The first set of exercises is Practice! problems. These are short-answer questions that relate to the section of material just presented. Most sections are immediately followed by a set of Practice! problems so that students can determine if they are ready to continue to the next section. Complete solutions to all the Practice! problems are included at the end of the text.

The Modify! problems are designed to provide hands-on experiences with the programs developed in the Problem Solving Applied sections. In these sections, we develop a complete C program using the five-step process. The Modify! problems ask students to run the program with different sets of data to test their understanding of how the program works and of the relationships among the engineering variables. These exercises also ask the students to make simple modifications to the program and then run the program to test their changes. Selected solutions to some of the Modify! problems are included at the end of the text.

Each chapter ends with a set of Exam Practice! problems and a set of end-of-chapter problems. The Exam Practice! problems are short-answer questions that relate to the material covered in the chapter. These problems help students determine how well they understand the features of C presented in the chapter. The end-of-chapter problems are new problems that relate to a variety of engineering applications, and the level of difficulty ranges from very straightforward to longer project assignments. Each problem requires that the student develop a complete C program or function. Engineering data sets are included for many of the problems to use in testing. Selected solutions to some of the Exam Practice! and end-of-chapter problems are included at the end of the text.

STUDY AND PROGRAMMING AIDS

Margin notes are used to help the reader not only identify the important concepts, but also to easily locate specific topics. In addition, margin notes are used to identify programming style guidelines and debugging information. Style guidelines show students how to write C programs that incorporate good software discipline; debugging sections help students recognize common errors so that they can avoid them.

The programming style notes are indicated with the margin note ,I>Style, and the debugging notes are indicated with a bug icon. Each Chapter Summary contains a summary of the style notes and debugging notes, plus a list of the Key Terms from the chapter and a C Statement Summary of the new statements to make the book easier to use as a reference. The combined list of these key terms, along with their definitions, is included in a Glossary at the end of the text.

OPTIONAL NUMERICAL TECHNIQUES

Numerical techniques that are commonly used in solving engineering problems are also discussed in optional sections in the chapters, and include interpolation, linear modeling (regression), root finding, numerical integration, and the solution to simultaneous equations. The concept of a matrix is also introduced and then illustrated using a number of examples. All of these topics are presented assuming only a trigonometry and college algebra background.

MATLAB AND VISUALIZATION

The visualization of the information related to a problem and its solution is a critical component in understanding and developing the intuition necessary to be a creative engineer. Therefore, we have included a number of plots of data throughout the text to illustrate the relationships of the information needed to solve specific problems. All the plots were generated using MATLAB, a powerful environment for numerical computations, data analysis, and visualization. We have also included an appendix that shows how to generate a simple plot from data that have been stored in an ASCII data file; this ASCII file could be generated with a word processor or it could be generated by a C program. If a course is planned that will include material on both C and MATLAB, a special package that includes this text and Engineering Problem Solving with MATLAB is available from Prentice Hall.

APPENDICES

To further enhance reference use, the appendices include a number of important topics. Appendix A contains a discussion of the components in the ANSI C Standard Library. Appendix B presents the ASCII character codes. Appendix C shows how to use MATLAB to plot data from ASCII files; this allows students to generate ASCII files with their C programs and to then plot the values using MATLAB. Finally, Appendix D contains a list of references used throughout the text.

INSTRUCTOR'S RESOURCE CD

An Instructor's Resource CD is available, which contains complete solutions to all the Modify! problems and end-of-chapter problems, as well as data files to use with application problems. A complete set of Power Point slides is included to assist the instructor in preparing lecture material.

NONTECHNICAL SKILLS

The engineer of the 21st century needs many skills and capabilities in addition to the technical ones learned in an engineering program. In Chapter 1 we present a brief discussion on some of these nontechnical skills that are so important to engineers. Specifically, we discuss developing both oral and written communications skills, understanding the design/process/manufacture path that takes an idea and leads to a product, working in interdisciplinary teams, understanding the world and its marketplace, the importance of synthesis as well as analysis, and the importance of ethics and other societal concerns in engineering solutions. While this text is devoted primarily to teaching problem solving skills and the C language, we have attempted to tie these other nontechnical topics into many of the problems and discussions in the text.