Applied Physics Department, FAS, HCMUT Matlab Projects – Physics 1

Project 5:
Plot the potential surface and electric field strength vectors
in the Oxy plane

1. Content
The electric field vector is determined by the potential in the Oxy plane by the following
expression:

If we know the potential expression in advance, we can represent the potential surface and the
electric field vectors in the Oxy plane.
This project requires students to use Matlab to calculate and represent the potential surface and
electric field vectors in the Oxy plane.

2. Requirements
1) Students should have basic programming knowledge of MATLAB.
2) Learn about symbolic calculation and graphical interpretation in MATLAB.

3. Tasks
Write Matlab program to:
1) Enter an expression , for example, lg (x) + y
2) Limit the space of the Oxy plane with xmax = ymax = 10
3) Use symbolic operations to compute and compute Ex and Ey components at all points
in given space.
4) Plot the potential surface V and electric field vectors .

Note: Students can use other non-symbolic approaches.

Submitting report has to contain text explaining the content of the program and the entire code
verified to run properly in Matlab.

4. References:
A. L. Garcia and C. Penland, MATLAB Projects for Scientists and Engineers, Prentice Hall,
Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996. http://www.algarcia.org/fishbane/fishbane.html. Or
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/2268-projects-for-scientists-and-
engineers

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