1. Electrical Engineering
Introduce yourself
Andrew Ferguson
Version 1.1 – 18 Mar 09

2. Electrical engineering…
Field of engineering that deals with the study and application of:
Electricity
Electronics
Electromagnetism
What does electrical engineering mean?
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3. Colorado School of Mines
Power Systems (Big)
Control Electronics (Small)
At CSM, people typically study two very different types of electrical engineering.
Power systems deals with big voltages, let’s say greater than 100V and all the way up to 500kV and more (as well as big devices, physically speaking)
Control Electronics deals with small voltages, let’s say less than 100V, although usually less than 12V if you’re using computer systems (as well as small devices, physically speaking)

4. Generation
So let’s talk about power systems. What are the different parts of the power system? Electricity has to be generated.
The picture above is one of several (four, I think) electric generators at Fort St. Vrain in Colorado.
Originally, Ft. St. Vrain was a nuclear power plant.
The system uses intakes air on the left side and compresses it to mix with natural gas in a turbine generator in the middle. The turbine generator is basically a jet engine bolted to the ground so it doesn’t go anywhere. The turbine is connected to an electric generator. The single tower toward the right is part of the heat recovery steam generators (HRSG), which uses the hot air for the turbine exhaust to heat water which is than used to drive steam turbines (originally used when it was a nuclear plant) to generate even more electricity.
The several towers at the far right are part of the noise and contaminant abatement system.
What other types of electric generators are there? Coal, nuclear, photovoltaic, wind, hydroelectic.
Photo: Andrew Ferguson ( )

5. Transmission
One we generate electricity, we have to move it. How do we do that?
Power lines of course. What types of power lines are there?
500kV
125kV
50kV
10kV
Etc
3-phase system
Photo: Andrew Ferguson (
Photo: Andrew Ferguson (

6. Electric Generators and Transformers
Types of electric machinery.
All use electromagnetic principles to accomplish their goals. Electric generators, electric motors, transformers.
Electric generator on the left is at Boulder Hydroelectric. They have two turbines which can generate 2.5MW each (5MW total).
The transformer on the right at Ft. St. Vrain. It takes 21kV and makes it 230kV. It’s rated at KVA. Why do we use transformers?
Photo: Andrew Ferguson (
Photo: Andrew Ferguson (

7. Power Maintenance at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
What’s going on here? Opening up a relay at a transformer yard.
Source: Neil Brady/

8. We Build What? What is this?
Electrical engineers also build small things, like iPods.
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9. Microcontrollers
Electrical engineers also program microcontrollers. They’re sort of like computers, but not.
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10. Field Programmable Gate Array
FPGA’s very useful (and common place) for quickly creating complex logic gate arrangements.
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11. Logic Gates
Here’s a logic gate, a JK flip-flop. Electrical engineers also program these

12. Regular Old Circuits
Electrical engineers also build regular old circuits. This is an inverter circuit.
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13. Cool Things
Source: Honda/

14. Questions?

15. This presentation is released under a Creative Commons License.
Electrical Engineering by Andrew Ferguson ( is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License ( Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at 
This presentation is released under a Creative Commons License.
You are free modify and distribute this presentation as long as you do not use this work for commercial purposes, you do provide credit, and you do release the new work under the same license.