Customer Reviews

Electrical Machines, Drives, and Power Systems (5th Edition)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This text is well organized and presents a wide range of topics in sufficient detail for many engineers and managers. Pictures and diagrams of equipment are abundant, as are electrical equations, waveforms, and phasor diagrams. Historical perspectives and advantages/disadvantages are included. It is surprising for one text to contain such breadth and depth, including transformers, motors, generators, controls, power electronics, utility systems, and harmonics. It was one of two books used in preparation for, and during, the PE exam; it continues to be a learning tool and reference.

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NOTE: I'd update this review to 4 stars but it won't let me. The errors in the solutions to the problems have been reviewed by Dr. Wildi as a result of this review and a new solutions manual has been compiled. Dr. Wildi is a rare author indeed! Original review follows.
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You'd think that by the 6th edition, most of the errors would be fixed. This is not the case. The answers to some of the problems have errors and I was unable to find an errata.

The coverage is broad, as would be expected from a single book trying to cover most of power systems. As a result, needed detail is lacking. For instance, a good portion of the time the book only covers magnitude calculations and phase coverage suffers because of it. However, for undergraduates who will have only one power course, it is comprehensive and covers the most important material well.

One thing I'd like to see in future editions is a treatment of power flow analysis. Although it has a lot of pictures of real equipment, much of it is very hard to make out. Clearer pictures in a future edition would be a nice upgrade as well.

For people who complain that this isn't for first year students or self-study, I have one thing to say: duh. It is very difficult, though not impossible, to learn engineering on your own. The biggest mistake self-study people make is not being strong in math and physics. You must learn calculus and electromagnetics before you get into anything beyond basic logic, or you will be lost.

I am delighted to have found this text. I find it the most comprehensive, complete and up-to-date text on electrical machinery, power distribution and transmission, etc., that I've seen. It does an esppecially outstanding job of presenting harmonics and harmonic effects on modern power systems. Kudos to the author!

I purchased this book after receiving recommendations for it to use as a reference on the PE Electrical exam (Power Depth). The recommendations have come due to the lack of depth in the EERM. I've been working through this text for a while now, and I am not finding it very helpful as a review or reference for the PE. I've seen other texts that do a better job explaining motors, generators, transmission lines, etc. Overall though it is a decent text.

This is a great book. A must have for the Principles and Practice Professional Engineers Exam. It is very well written and has very useful information regarding electrical machines, drives, and power systems.

My job recently started to include quite a bit of Electrical Engineering such as generator sizing. I also needed to specify motor controls and electrical filters to avoid interference, and other electrical issues which I had a poor understanding of. I had suppliers and contractors asking me questions like I was some kind of electrical guru.

This book greatly assisted my understanding, and one of my latest projects involving a 125 HP submersible vertical turbine driven by a VFD was successful as a result.

Thanks, Steve Willie, Olympia, WA

This book has considerable information for advanced studies, but is lacking more down to earth presentation. It needs more simplified terminology.This is not a book for a first year colledge student.

I had engineering science program years ago , but not much electrial circuits- just the basics. I bought this book for self-study. I read through the first eight chapters and worked a lot of the problems without much problem. I then read the chapters on the smaller electric motors and some about controls. Its not a begineers self-study book. If you have the background you can learn from this book;however, I had to read some of the material over several times to understand it. I still didn't feel like I had a good understanding about the basics of electric motors. Like how to wire them up, how to read the nameplate and so forth. This book is for the classroom and lab. It has a lot of information. My local university uses it in their technology program for three different courses I think.

It treats only the basics of electrical machines and it is very outdated. I would recommend it instead:

Electric Machinery Fundamentals

I got this book when studying for the Power PE the second time. This book is excellent. It has technical and practical information about motors, generators, transformers, etc. It was one of the 5 books I ended up using during my second go at the Power PE. You will find answers to unexpected PE questions in this book.