UPSC Engineering Services Examination - Electrical Engineering

Controlling Control Systems

2013-01-16T22:16:00.001-08:00

Control Systems Engineering proves to be the most scoring and the least time consuming subject in the list. This can be prepared in one week from scratch and 3-4 days with some previous knowledge. I used B. S . Manke (Linear Control Systems) for this topic. Nagrath Gopal is also an alternative.

Here is my strategy to go through this topic.

Mathematical modeling of physical systems. Block diagrams and signal flow graphs and their reduction.

Read from Manke chapter 3 & 4. Go through all solved examples. no need to do unsolved questions.

Time domain and frequency domain analysis of linear dynamical system. Errors for different type of inputs and stability criteria for feedback systems.

Chapter 6 in Manke. write down derivations and formulas for all parameters like peak time, rise time, max overshoot, settling time etc. Properly go through error coefficients and error series.

Stability analysis using Routh-Hurwitz array, Nyquist plot and Bode plot. Root locus and Nicols chart and the estimation of gain and phase margin.

chapter 7 in Manke. Leave Nicols chart. Try not to attempt questions involving bode or nyquist plots to be plotted on graphs paper in Exam. Same should be attempted if asked to be drawn on notebook itself. Practice Routh Hurwitz thoroughly.

Basic concepts of compensator design.

Chapter 8 in Manke. Once understood, cram everything up for fast answers in exam. Comparison of both compensators should be written on a notebook. No need to study compensator design.

State variable matrix and its use in system modeling and design.

chalpter 9 in Manke. Direct decomposition and parallel decomposition should be done in no time. contollability and obsevability should be seen from system matrix directly(No need for Kalman's test)

Sampled data system and performance of such a system with the samples in the error channel.

I left this topic.

Control system components, electromechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic components.- Servomotors should be ready on fingertips. Don't dive deep in this section. Superficial study is sufficient.

-- Good Luck.

GS & English Paper (GAT) in IES exam

2012-10-19T02:18:00.003-07:00

GS and English paper (GAT) is the one gets the least attention from the aspirants. Same was the case with me. But if you got time or have Civil Services Examination as your next target GAT paper will prove to be rank booster in ESE. For IES I will suggest not to put any extra effort for GAT paper. Here is my strategy English paper.

English :

1. For antonyms and synonyms you have to enhance your vocabulary. If you have an android phone, install a good dictionary (Merriam-webster is very good and available for free) in your phone. Search every word you come across in news paper, movies, online reading and mark it favorite in the dictionary. Every weekend go through your favorite wordlist and try to recollect their meaning. If you are able to remember a word for more than 3 consecutive weeks, remove the word from the list. After two months you will be able to see a substantial improvement in vocabulary. This exercise should not be taken as a separate project and should be done throughout your preparation.

There are 15-20 questions on antonyms and synonyms every year and can get you 30-35 marks for no extra effort.

2. For rest of the questions go through the Made Easy English book and practice previous 10 year papers thoroughly. For more command on English download CDS (Combined Defence Services) papers from UPSC website solve them separately. This whole exercise should be done in 3-4 days in the month of May or June. Don't keep studying English for months. Once completed all previous year papers just revising these on the day before Day-1 of IES exam will get you good marks in English.

Strategy for GS: I will cover in my next post.

Electrical Engineering Books for IES Examination

2012-10-18T07:45:00.002-07:00

There is booklist available on madeeasy website but I hardly found it of any help. I didn't show any interest in electrical engineering subjects in college so it came out as the biggest question which books should I buy? First of all I collected all ebooks available on internet and decided not to buy a single book for which I had a digital print. However I bought many books most of which were of no use. I would like to recommend a refined booklist which I made once I glided through every resource.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PAPER - I

1. EM Theory : Elements of Electromagnetics by Sadiku. Ebook is available on internet. Read only Chapter 2-12 and go through antenna also if you got time.

2. Electrical Materials : Electrical Engineering Material by S P Seth Chapter 1-8 should be read thoroughly.

3. Electrical Circuits : Network and Systems by D Roy Choudhary. I went through this book; However A Chakraborty is also a good book. One can choose btw these two.

4. Measurements and Instrumentation: A K Sawhney – I will discuss strategy to cover this 1800 pages book in a separate blog.

5. Control Systems : Control Systems Engineering by Nagrath and Gopal.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PAPER - II

1. Electrical Machines and Power Transformers: Electric Machines by Nagrath Kothari. This book covers everything in short. I had this book during my college. One can also opt for P S Bimbhra. Fitzgerald ebook is available on internet. It should be downloaded to understand some topics which are not covered in Nagrath Kothari.

2. Power systems : Electrical Power Systems by C L Wadhwa encompasses everything under this topic.

3. ANALOG AND DIGITAL ELECTRONICS AND CIRCUITS :

Analog Electronics – An integrated course in Electronics Engineering by J B Gupta backed by Sedra and Smith ( Ebook available).

Digital Electronics – Morris Mano backed by Anil K Maini ( Ebooks are available for both)

4. MICROPROCESSORS: R S Gaonkar is more than sufficient for Microprocessors.

5. COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Analog Communication: Analog Communication System by Abhishek Yadav covers this topic beautifully for IES examination however as a textbook it might not be a good one. For IES go for it without any doubt.

Digital Communication : Digital communication by Abhishek Yadav but it has to be supplemented with Simon Haykins for which ebook is available.

6. POWER ELECTRONICS

Power Electronics by P S Bhimbra is more than good.

UPSC Engineering Services Examination (IES) - Syllabus

2012-10-18T06:38:00.003-07:00

I started this blog to share my experiences with ESE aspirant appearing with the subject Electrical Engineering. I have resources collected from various websites,seniors and coaching centers and books etc. I will try to share most of them in my upcoming posts.

Syllabus:

One should clearly know the syllabus as well as paper pattern before starting his/her preparation. A printout of syllabus should be kept in handy and study plan should be made accordingly. For ease of candidates I am sharing the syllabus of electrical engineering for UPSC Engineering Services Examination ( Popular as IES). I had a word file made for my self. It can be downloaded from the link
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByOkVlpWeUZ6SDY3ZVo1RktzNGM

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PAPER - I

(For both objective and conventional types papers)

1. EM Theory
Electric and magnetic fields. Gauss’s Law and Amperes Law. Fields in dielectrics, conductors and magnetic materials. Maxwell’s equations. Time varying fields. Plane-Wave propagating in dielectric and conducting media. Transmission lines.

2. Electrical Materials
Band Theory, Conductors, Semi-conductors and Insulators. Super-conductivity. Insulators for electrical and electronic applications. Magnetic materials. Ferro and ferrimagnetisms. Ceramics, Properties and applications. Hall Effect and its applications. Special semi conductors.

3. Electrical Circuits
Circuits elements. Kirchoff’s Laws. Mesh and nodal analysis. Network Theorems and applications. Natural response and forced response. Transient response and steady state response for arbitrary inputs. Properties of networks in terms of poles and zeros. Transfer function. Resonant circuits. Three phase circuits. Two-port networks. Elements of two-element network synthesis.

4. Measurements and Instrumentation
Units and Standards. Error analysis, measurement of current, Voltage, power, Power-factor and energy. Indicating instruments. Measurement of resistance, inductance, Capacitance and frequency. Bridge measurements. Electronic measuring instruments. Digital Voltmeter and frequency counter. Transducers and their applications to the measurement of non-electrical quantities like temperature, pressure, flow-rate displacement, acceleration, noise level etc. Data acquisition systems. A/D and D/A converters.

5. Control Systems
Mathematical modeling of physical systems. Block diagrams and signal flow graphs and their reduction. Time domain and frequency domain analysis of linear dynamical system. Errors for different type of inputs and stability criteria for feedback systems. Stability analysis using Routh-Hurwitz array, Nyquist plot and Bode plot. Root locus and Nicols chart and the estimation of gain and phase margin. Basic concepts of compensator design. State variable matrix and its use in system modeling and design. Sampled data system and performance of such a system with the samples in the error channel. Stability of sampled data system. Elements of non-linear control analysis. Control system components, electromechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic components.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PAPER - II
(For both objective and conventional types papers)

1. Electrical Machines and Power Transformers
Magnetic Circuits - Analysis and Design of Power transformers. Construction and testing. Equivalent circuits. Losses and efficiency. Regulation. Auto-transformer, 3-phase transformer. Parallel operation.
Basic concepts in rotating machines. EMF, torque, basic machine types. Construction and operation, leakage losses and efficiency.
DC. Machines. Construction, Excitation methods. Circuit models. Armature reaction and commutation. Characteristics and performance analysis. Generators and motors. Starting and speed control. Testing, Losses and efficiency.
Synchronous Machines. Construction. Circuit model. Operating characteristics and performance analysis. Synchronous reactance. Efficiency. Voltage regulation. Salient-pole machine, Parallel operation. Hunting. Short circuit transients.
Induction Machines. Construction. Principle of operation. Rotating fields. Characteristics and performance analysis. Determination of circuit model. Circle diagram. Starting and speed control.
Fractional KW motors. Single-phase synchronous and induction motors.

2. Power systems
Types of Power Stations, Hydro, Thermal and Nuclear Stations. Pumped storage plants. Economics and operating factors.
Power transmission lines. Modeling and performance characteristics. Voltage control. Load flow studies. Optimal power system operation. Load frequency control. Symmetrical short circuit analysis. ZBus formulation. Symmetrical Components. Per Unit representation. Fault analysis. Transient and steady-state stability of power systems. Equal area criterion.
Power system Transients. Power system Protection Circuit breakers. Relays. HVDC transmission.

3. ANALOG AND DIGITAL ELECTRONICS AND CIRCUITS
Semiconductor device physics, PN junctions and transistors, circuit models and parameters, FET, Zener, tunnel, Schottky, photo diodes and their applications, rectifier circuits, voltage regulators and multipliers, switching behavior of diodes and transistors.
Small signal amplifiers, biasing circuits, frequency response and improvement, multistage amplifiers and feed-back amplifiers, D.C. amplifiers, Oscillators. Large signal amplifiers, coupling methods, push pull amplifiers, operational amplifiers, wave shaping circuits. Multivibrators and flip-flops and their applications. Digital logic gate families, universal gates-combination circuits for arithmetic and logic operational, sequential logic circuits. Counters, registers, RAM and ROMs.

4. MICROPROCESSORS
Microprocessor architecture-Instruction set and simple assembly language programming. Interfacing for memory and I/O. Applications of Micro-processors in power system.

5. COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
Types of modulation; AM, FM and PM. Demodulators. Noise and bandwidth considerations. Digital communication systems. Pulse code modulation and demodulation. Elements of sound and vision broadcasting. Carrier communication. Frequency division and time division multiplexing, Telemetry system in power engineering.

6. POWER ELECTRONICS
Power Semiconductor devices. Thyristor. Power transistor, GTOs and MOSFETS. Characteristics and operation. AC to DC Converters; 1-phase and 3-phase DC to DC Converters; AC regulators. Thyristor controlled reactors; switched capacitor networks.
Inverters; single-phase and 3-phase. Pulse width modulation. Sinusoidal modulation with uniform sampling. Switched mode power supplies.