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Basic Electric Circuit Analysis-D. E. Johnson, J. L. Hilburn, and J. R. Johnson

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Education · December 1981

DOI: 10.1109/TE.1981.4321516 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. E-24, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1981
Book Reviews_ _ _
Basic Electric Circuit Analysis-D. E. Johnson, J. L. Hilburn,
and J. R. Johnson (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978,
515 pp., and solutions manual). Reviewed by D. L. Soldan
and F. W. Ratcliffe.
This review is based upon the reviewers' use of this book for
a beginning circuit analysis course at Kansas State University
in the Spring 1980 semester. Students taking this course are
usually sophomores who have had at least three semesters of
calculus and one semester of engineering physics. The course
includes material from Chapters 1-7 and 10-13. A second cir-
cuit analysis course that covers the material in the remaining
chapters is currently taught using a different text.
CHAPTER BY CHAPTER DISCUSSION
The first chapter introduces the basic concepts of charge and
current. In addition, power, energy, and voltage are discussed.
The units associated with these quantities are defined. Inde-
pendent sources are briefly introduced at the end of the
chapter.
Ohm's law and Kirchhoff's laws are introduced in Chapter 2.
Series and parallel combinations of resistors, along with the
companion concepts of voltage and current division, are dis-
cussed. This chapter concludes with sections dealing with
meters and physical resistors.
Chapter 3 deals with dependent sources. The operational
amplifier is introduced as a practical example of a dependent
source.
Nodal analysis and mesh analysis are the subjects of Chapter
4. A discussion of operational amplifiers is included in the
nodal analysis discussion. Chapter 5 continues to introduce
new techniques such as superposition and Thevenin's and
Norton's theorems. In addition, it contains sections on prac-
tical sources and the maximum power transfer theorem.
Chapter 6 is a very brief introduction to network topology
technique using network graphs.
Chapters 7, 8, and 9 deal with energy storage elements and
their combinations. Topics presented include forced and natu-
ral responses, the unit step, energy storage, and second-order
circuits.
Sinusoidal excitation is the topic of Chapter 10. Phasor no-
tation along with the concepts of impedance and admittance
are introduced. The results of Chapter 2 are extended to sinu-
soidal steady-state analysis. Chapter 11 is a similiar extension
of the results of Chapters 4 and 5. Phasor diagrams are used to
show the voltage-current relationships for the steady-state cir-
cuit. Sinusoidal steady-state power is covered in Chapter 12.
The notion of rms values is introduced along with average
power and power factor. Complex power notation is used and
a section on power measurement is included. Three-phase
power is the subject of Chapter 13. In addition to the stan-
dard topics of wye and delta connected circuits and wye to
D. L. Soldan is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Oklahoma
State University, Stillwater, OK 74078.
F. W. Ratcliffe is with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66502.
297
__ _
delta transformations, three-phase power meters are discussed.
Network functions are discussed in Chapters 14 and 15. A
variety of subjects is covered including natural response, two-
port networks, amplitude and frequency response, resonance
and quality factor, and pole-zero plots. The decibel is intro-
duced at the end of Chapter 15.
Chapter 16 is concerned with transformers' mutual induc-
tance. Energy storage, reflected impedance, and equivalent
circuits are discussed.
The subject of Fourier analysis is dealt with in Chapter 17.
Both trigonometric and exponential Fourier series are included.
Frequency spectra and the Fourier transform are introduced.
Chapter 18 is concerned with the Laplace transform and its
use in solving differential equations. The impulse function is
developed. A section on transformed circuits concludes the
book.
Four appendices are given. These cover: a) determinants and
Cramer's rule; b) Gaussian elimination; c) complex numbers;
and d) Euler's formula.
EXERCISES AND PROBLEMS
Each section of the book includes some exercises covering
the material given in that section. Answers are provided for
these exercises. In addition, problems are given at the end of
each chapter. These problems are generally more difficult
than the exercises. No answers are given in the text. A solu-
tions manual is available.
CONCLUSION
Overall, the presentation of material is logical and easily un-
derstood. Some examples however, suffer due to brevity of
explanation. It is often necessary to give very detailed ex-
planations for beginning students and this book sometimes
falls short of that. Perhaps the most confusing thing about the
entire book is the introduction of operational amplifiers early
in the book. The number of new concepts introduced in this
course is large enough without adding one that might be better
left for an introductory electronics course.
The most often heard complaint from students was that a
large number of exercises and problems refer to previous ex-
ercises or problems. Some of these referred to problems
themselves referring to earlier problems. This means that
the student must be paging back and forth to assemble all the
information to work a given problem. It would be far better
to repeat a circuit diagram or set of conditions than to have to
search through the book so much to get the statement of a
problem.
The second major student input was that the learning pro-
cess would have been improved if answers were available for
selected problems. The exercises have answers in the text but
in general they are very elementary in nature. The problems
are more complex and without some feedback it is hard for
the student to assess his progress. During the latter part of the
semester, answers were provided from the solutions manual so
that students could check their own work.
A short evaluation form was completed by 67 students.
Some of the questions are summarized below. The response
 298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. E-24, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 1981

TABLE I
RESPONSE TO EVALUATION

Question 1 2 3 4 5 Average

1 2 10 24 23 8 3.37
2 0 6 26 21 14 3.64
3 2 4 17 34 10 3.69
4 5 7 28 21 6 3.15
5 45 18 (4 no response) 1.29

key for all except the last question was: 1-hardly ever; 2-
occasionally; 3-sometimes; 4 -frequently; 5 -almost al-
ways. The last question was: 1-yes; 2-no. The questions
were:
1) Did the example problems in the text help you under-
stand the topics presented in the course?
2) Were the problems at the end of each chapter clearly
stated and easily understood?
3) Were the exercises at the end of each section clearly
stated and easily understood?
4) Was the textbook easy to read and understand?
5) Do you recommend continued use of this textbook?
The responses are summarized in Table I.

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