Steven McFadyen's Articles

Steven is a Chartered electrical engineering consultant with considerable experience on major internationally recognised and award winning projects in Europe, South East Asia, and the Middle East. His expertise has been called on for numerous technically challenging projects in power systems, airports, rail, mining, pharmaceutical, datacentre, and other industries.



Railway Electrification Voltages

This post is quick introduction and overview to different railway electrification voltages used in answer to a question sent in via email. While there...

Why use catalogues

I'm a fan of using manufacturers catalogues. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, if your involved in the purchase of equipment, you will likely...

Generator Sizing & Operation Limits

When selecting a generator, there are inherent limits on the active and reactive power which can be delivered. Generators are normally sized for a certain...

Useful Motor Technical Information

Sometimes it’s useful to be able to quickly lookup a piece of technical information.  This note is a collection of information related to motors, and in...

Autonomous Vehicle Challenge

Two driverless and solar power vans have departed from Italy on their way to China via the silk road. During the 13,000 kM trip the vans will drive themselves...

Material Properties

Everything physical in electrical engineering from insulations to conductors revolves around materials. Here we are listing common materials along with...

New Mail Chimp

We've been sending out Newsletters on a regular basis for a few weeks now. To do this we have been using Google's Feedburner service. While Feedburner...

Write your best report

Years ago I was told that you should always try to write the best report you can.  Many years later I still think on this as one of the better pieces of...

Why is electricity so hard to understand?

It's been a busy few months on different projects or busy couple of decades depending on how I look at it. I can say that on the odd (frequent) occasion...

Voltage Levels to IEC 60038

The standard aims to consolidate AC and traction voltages within the industry and defines the following bands: band 1 - A.C. systems 100 V to 1...

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