Are there any engineers out there who have actually used calculus at work? (Software engineers don't count).

Question

Real life examples would be great.

Answer 1

I just finished an analysis that used a convolution integral of several linear energy transfer (LET) functions with a single event upset (SEU) cross section function for some Altera FPGAs, to determine how many times per day these particular FPGAs would upset due to radiation in a satellite, on orbit.

The integrals were solved numerically.

I can list many other examples. Suffice it to say that I use calculus at work on a very regular basis. Most of the time integrals are solved numerically. Sometimes I will manually solve a Laplace transform if it is simple, but I'll let MathCAD or Matlab solve the more complex transforms.

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Answer 2

Why don't SW engineer count? Everybody has to write some kind of SW these days. It's hard to draw the line sometimes. I'm a EE by education, but I do alot of SW.

It is also kind of hard to answer because Calculus is kind of like the base layer of math that other things get built on top of. Calculus is all about rates of change and infinite series and things. Sure we have to use that stuff all the time. One more step above Calculus are differential equations. This gets you into modeling systems with equations. If you know how a system changes, you can write an equation that describes it.

In engineering we often talk about a black box. You put inputs into it and get outputs from it. You don't have to know what's in the box. You can create an equation to model its behavior.

Electrical components such as inductors, capacitors, are modeled in equations as either taking a deriviative or an integral. You build an electrical circuit out of the 3 basic building blocks -- inductors, resistors, and capacitors. You model the circuit as an equation, and you use calculus to solve it. So, every electrical circuit ever designed used calculus.

It starts to really get hairy when you start to talk about the complex plane and poles and zeros which describe the stability of a circuit. Now you have gotten to the next step beyond calculus, sometimes called complex analysis. This is the type of math that allows control systems to exist such as the tracking system on an antenna.

Sorry for so long an answer, but you really can't avoid using calculus in engineering. It is the basis for all of our theories of how things work.

Answer 3

I use calculus every day. I am an electrical engineer who works in the optics industry. I also regularly work with differential equations.

For example, I recently worked with a system of partial differential equations that are used to model stimulated Brillouin scattering, a phenomenon that limits the amount of light power that you can put down a fiber. In the power supply design area, we frequently need to integrate curves of current measurements from instruments. In the RF circuit design area, I am in the middle of an optimization effort to determine the gain settings for a sequence of amplifiers that will give me the best performance.

Answer 4

I have been an EE for 10 years and can't think of a time when I ever used it. Like a previous poster, I use linear algebra quite a bit, as well as some trig functions in equations.

Answer 5

I needed it once to calculate the rolling moment of inertia of a paper roll going down a ramp off a winder.

Had a graph for water usage, needed numerical integration to get the total volume of water for the day from the graph.

Answer 6

The principle of calculus is used to compute earthwork quantities. For open channel flow, calculus principles are used to compute flow profiles.

Answer 7

Yes. In fact, many do. In Aerospace, you need calc to figure stress from things such as cantilever wings and such. However, the formulas are sometimes already known and so it might not appear to be calc.

Answer 8

So often you don't even think about it.

Admittedly, most of it is pretty simple stuff for the aforementioned shear, moment, deflections, etc.

Every now and then I even break out the DiffEQ!

Answer 9

Yes, mostly integrals and derivatives. These are usually computed numerically.

Answer 10

I use more Linear Algebra than anything.