Preface

This book is a result of feedback from many readers of the book Engineering with Mathcad: Using Mathcad to Create and Organize your Engineering Calculations.

The goal of Engineering with Mathcad was to get readers using Mathcad's tools as quickly as possible. This was accomplished by providing a step-by-step approach that enabled easy learning. As a result of reader feedback, Essential Mathcad makes it even easier to learn Mathcad. We added a new Chapter 1 that quickly introduces many useful Mathcad concepts. By the end of Chapter 1 you should be able to create and edit Mathcad expressions, use the Mathcad toolbars to access important features, understand the difference between the various equal signs, understand math and text regions, know how to create a user-defined function, attach and display units, create arrays, understand the difference between literal subscripts and array subscripts, use range variables, and plot an X-Y graph. Readers felt that the discussion of Mathcad settings and templates in Part 1 slowed down their learning of Mathcad. As a result of this feedback, the chapters Mathcad Settings, Customizing Mathcad, and Templates have been moved to Part IV. These chapters will have more meaning after readers have a greater understanding of Mathcad. Most of the material from Engineering with Mathcad is included in this book, but it has been rearranged in order to allow quicker access to Mathcad's tools.

Readers asked for more applied examples of using Mathcad from various disciplines. Essential Mathcad provides many additional examples from fields such as: Chemistry, water resources, hydrology, engineering mechanics, sanitary engineering, and taxes. These examples help illustrate the concepts covered in each chapter.

A challenge with any book is to hit a balance between too little material and too much material. Based on feedback from Engineering with Mathcad, I feel that we have achieved a good balance in Essential Mathcad. Some have said that the first edition did not cover enough advanced topics for their math, physics or advanced engineering courses. Others asked for coverage of some essential engineering topics. On the other hand, some said that the book was too long and covered too much material. Essential Mathcad is an attempt to achieve an even better balance. By adding the new Chapter 1, An Introduction to Mathcad, and rearranging other chapters, I think we have helped make learning Mathcad even easier. By adding discussion of some requested topics, I think we have satisfied the desires of many readers who wanted discussion of more topics. This book cannot and does not include a discussion of all the many Mathcad functions and features. It does attempt to focus on the functions and features that will be most useful to a majority of the readers.

Book Overview

This book uses an analogy of teaching you how to build a house. If you were to learn how to build a house, the final goal would be the completed house. Learning how to use the tools would be a necessary step, but the tools are just a means to help you complete the house. It is the same with this book. The ultimate goal is to teach you how to apply Mathcad to build comprehensive project calculations.

In order to begin building, you need to learn a little about the tools. You also need to have a toolbox where you can put the tools. When building a house, there are simple hand tools and more powerful power tools. It is the same with Mathcad. We will learn to use the simple tools before learning about the power tools. After learning about the tools, we learn to build.

This book is divided into four parts:

Part I—Building Your Mathcad Toolbox. This is where you build your Mathcad toolbox—your basic understanding of Mathcad. It teaches the basics of the Mathcad program. The chapters in this part create a solid foundation upon which to build.

Part II—Hand Tools for Your Mathcad Toolbox. The chapters in this part will focus on simple features to get you comfortable with Mathcad.

Part III—Power Tools for you Mathcad Toolbox. This part addresses more complex and powerful Mathcad features.

Part IV—Creating and Organizing Your Project Calculations with Mathcad. This is where you start using the tools in your toolbox to build something—project calculations. This part discusses embedding other programs into Mathcad. It also discusses how to assemble calculations from multiple Mathcad files, and files from other programs.

Additional Resources

This book is written as a supplement to the Mathcad Help and the Mathcad User's Guide. It adds insights not contained in these resources. You should become familiar with the use of both of these resources prior to beginning an earnest study of this book. To access Mathcad Help, click Mathcad Help from the Help menu, or press the F1 key. The Mathcad User's Guide is a PDF file located in the Mathcad program directory in the “doc” folder.

In addition to the Mathcad Help and the Mathcad User's Guide, the Mathcad Tutorials provide an excellent resource to help learn Mathcad. The Mathcad Tutorials are accessed by clicking Tutorials from the Help menu. Take the opportunity to review some of the topics covered by the tutorials.

This book (if sold in North America) includes a CD containing the full, non-expiring version of Mathcad v.14. The software is intended for educational use only. The book along with CD provides a complete introduction to learning and using Mathcad. A companion website is provided along with the text and includes links to additional exercises and applications, errata, and other updates related to the book. Please visit www.elsevierdirect.com/9780123747839.

Teminology

There are a few terms we need to discuss in order to communicate effectively.

The terms, “click,” “clicking” or “select” will mean to click with the left mouse button.

The terms “expression” and “equation” are sometimes used interchangeably. “The term “equation” is a subset of the term “expression.” When we use the term “equation,” it generally means some type of algebraic math equation that is being defined on the right side of the definition symbol “:=”. The term “expression” is broader. It usually means anything located to the right of the definition symbol. It can mean “equation” or it can mean a Mathcad program, a user-defined function, a matrix or vector or any number of other Mathcad elements.