OVERVIEW

The course is aimed at Computer Engineering students. The topics covered concern classical electromagnetism, from the electric field to Faraday's law, including basic electrical circuits.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

This teaching unit provides basic knowledge of thermodynamics and electromagnetism in vacuum and enables the student to describe the behavior of thermodynamic systems and systems of charges in the presence of electric and magnetic fields that are constant and variable over time.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The specific educational objective is to provide students with the ability to solve practical, albeit basic, problems related to the theory of electromagnetism.
Students will become familiar with fundamental concepts such as electric and magnetic fields and forces, work, Gauss's law, Ampère's law, Faraday's law, and so on.

PREREQUISITES

The prerequisites are basic mechanics and differential calculus.
More advanced mathematical topics (such as surface and line integrals) will be introduced during the course.

TEACHING METHODS

The course is structured in lectures and exercises.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Course Introduction and Review: Vectors, significant figures, units of measurement.
Electric phenomena: Coulomb's law.
Exercise: Comparison between electrostatic and gravitational forces.
Superposition principle.

Electrostatic field:

• For a point charge, discrete distribution, continuous distribution.
  Exercise: Electrostatic field of a charged ring.
  Exercise: Electrostatic field of a charged disk, limit as radius → ∞.
  Electrostatic field of two infinite charged planes.
  Field lines.

Work of the electrostatic field:

• Potential energy and potential for a point charge, a discrete system, and a continuous system of charges.
  Exercise: Potential and potential energy of a system of 3 point charges.
  Electric field as the gradient of the potential.
  Exercises: Potential of a uniform field; infinite parallel charged planes; potential of a charged ring; potential of a charged disk.

Motion of a charge in an electric field:

• Conservation of energy.
  Exercises: Electron in a uniform field; classical Bohr atom model; electrostatic separator.

Electric dipole:

• Potential and field.

• Forces on a dipole in a uniform field.

• Torque and energy.

Flux of a vector field:

• Built using fluid dynamics analogies.

• Flux of the electrostatic field.
  Gauss's theorem, with proof only for a spherical surface and a point charge.
  Exercises: Field and potential of a spherical surface charge distribution; uniformly charged sphere; uniformly charged cylinder; infinite charged plane.

Conductors in electrostatic equilibrium:

• Conductors with cavities, charge inside cavities, electrostatic induction.

Capacitors:

• Capacitance of spherical, planar, and cylindrical capacitors.

• Electrostatic energy of a capacitor, energy density.

• Capacitors in series and parallel.

• Oscillating dipole in an electric field.

Classical model for electrical conduction:

• Drift velocity, current density, current.

• Ohm's law, Joule effect, resistors in series and parallel, electromotive force.

• Kirchhoff's laws, charging and discharging of a capacitor.

Magnetic field:

• Empirical observations.

• Lorentz force.

• Particle motion in a uniform magnetic field, angular velocity, helical pitch.
  Examples: Mass spectrometer, velocity selector, cyclotron.

Force on a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field:

• Torque on a current loop.

Magnetic field generated by a current:

• Laplace’s law; moving charges.
  Applications: Straight wire (Biot-Savart law); circular loop; straight solenoid.

• Force between current-carrying wires.

Ampère’s theorem, with proof for the straight wire.
Applications: Field of a wire, straight solenoid, toroidal solenoid.

Magnetic flux:

• Solenoidal fields.

Faraday-Neumann-Lenz law:

• DC and AC generators.

• Felici’s law.

Self-induction:

• Inductance of a solenoid, RL series circuit, closing transient current.

• Magnetic energy.

• Mutual induction (overview).

Displacement current. Maxwell’s equations.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

·  Halliday-Resnick-Walker, Fondamenti di fisica (parte che include l'elettromagnetismo)

·  Resnick-Halliday-Krane, Fisica 2

·  Halliday-Resnick, vecchie edizioni, titoli vari.

·  Serway Principi di fisica

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

The schedule for this course can be found at:  Portale EasyAcademy

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Written Exam:
The written exam consists of solving two problems in electromagnetism. Duration: 2 hours. Students are allowed to consult books or notes during the exam.

Oral Exam:

1. Students who obtain an average score of 15/30 in the two midterm tests held during the course, or in the regular exam sessions, are admitted to the oral exam.

2. The oral exam consists of an interview covering both mechanics and electromagnetism. If either part of the interview is judged insufficient, the oral exam will be considered entirely invalid, and the student will have to retake the entire oral exam (the written exam results will still be valid). Special cases will be assessed by the instructors on a case-by-case basis.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The written exam will assess the student’s ability to:
i) interpret the wording of the given problem and develop a schematic representation;
ii) identify the relevant physical laws and the corresponding equations to apply;
iii) solve the problem quantitatively;
iv) evaluate the reasonableness of the numerical result obtained.

The oral exam will verify the student’s ability to:
i) introduce the requested topic using appropriate scientific language;
ii) describe simple applications of the physical laws under discussion.