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.



Post Editing Tips

If you at all familiar with programs like office and outlook, then adding and editing posts is pretty straightforward and intuitive.  However, there are...

Generation of a Sine Wave

A fundamental concept behind the operation of alternating current systems is that voltage and current waveforms will be sinusoidal – a Sine Wave. This...

Surface Treatment – Ladders, Trays and Baskets

Steel ladders, trays and baskets form the backbone of cable containment systems. Often these items need some form of surface treatment to prevent corrosion...

Differential protection, the good old days

This morning I was explaining how differential protection works to a junior engineer. To give him something to read I opened up the NPAG (Network Protection...

Maxwell's Equations - Introduction

Maxwell's Equations are a set of fundamental relationships, which govern how electric and magnetic fields interact. The equations explain how these fields...

Fault Calculations - Typical Equipment Parameters

A frequent problem in fault calculations is the obtaining of equipment parameters.  While it is always preferable to use the actual parameters of the equipment...

EU Code of Conduct on Data Centres - Best Practices

The European Union is implementing a voluntary code of practice for participants with the aim of improving the overall efficiency of data centres. As part...

How D.C. to A.C. Inverters Work

Traditionally generation of electricity has involved rotating machines to produce alternating sinusoidal voltage and current (a.c. systems). With the development...

Tech Topics/Application Notes - Siemens

There are a lot of interesting two page type notes on various medium voltage topics – switchgear, circuit breakers, bus systems etc. It is on the Siemens...

Maxwell's Equations - Gauss's Electric Field Law

Gauss's Electrical law defines the relation between charge ("Positive" & "Negative") and electric field.  The law was initially formulated by Carl Friedrich...

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