What Every Engineer Should Know Series

What Every Engineer Should Know About Excel

by J. P. Holman and Blake K. Holman

Published 9 June 2006

With the many software packages available today, it's easy to overlook the computational and graphics capabilities offered by Microsoft® Excel™. The software is nearly ubiquitous and understanding its capabilities is an enormous benefit to engineers in almost any field and at all levels of experience. What Every Engineer Should Know About Excel offers in nine self-contained chapters a practical guide to the features and functions that can be used, for example, to solve equations and systems of equations, build charts and graphs, create line drawings, and perform optimizations. The author uses examples and screenshots to walk you through the steps and build a strong understanding of the material.

With this book, you will learn how to…

Set up the keyboard for direct entry of most math and Greek symbols

Build a default scatter graph that is applicable to most simple presentations with little cosmetic modification

Apply many types of formats to adjust the cosmetics of graphs

Use 3D surface and area charts for data and functional representations, with associated cosmetic adjustments

Correlate data with various types of functional relations

Use line drawing tools to construct simple schematics or other diagrams

Solve linear and nonlinear sets of equations using multiple methods

Curve student grades using Excel probability functions

Model device performance using different types of regression analysis involving multiple variables

Manipulate Excel financial functions

Calculate retirement accumulation with variable contribution rate and retirement payouts to match increases in inflation

Apply Excel methods for optimization problems with both linear and nonlinear relations

Use pivot tables to manipulate both experimental data and analytical relationships

Calculate experimental uncertainties using Excel

And much more!