MATLAB

Do you mean MATLAB or MathCAD? You can google either name to find more info.

Sorry, my baddddd!

I meant to type MATLAB throughout the OP.

I did try Googling, but as usual I get a ton crap instead of getting down to the nitty gritty stuff that I really want....

First, it's called MATLAB...Matrix Laboratory....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MATLAB

http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab/

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/13911-simulink-modelling-of-a-3-phase-induction-motor-using-its-test-results

Freemat an open source..

Freemat may be an option

Matlab (I'm a neophyte myself) is a matrix based computation tool using a programatic / scripted interface. Special characters are contextual, so a semicolon means one thing in one use and something else used elsewhere.

To get really rocking you will need supplementary applications like Simulink.

As for costs it is expensive enough individuals rarely buy it, like owning your own CATIA.

I found it effective, but hardly transparent or friendly.

I have a couple books in PDF if you decide to go forward.

I used it 5 years when I went back to college. Many people find it intuitive, many do not.

Some decent tutorials on YouTube.

You'll need some reference material.

"Introduction to MATLAB for Engineers"

"Elementary Numerical Analysis" is pretty MATLAB intensive.

"System Dynamics" by Palm is heavy MATLAB.

I used it extensively. I had quite a fight with it at times. I don't find it very intuitive myself.

Some of the universites had good MATLAB tutorials posted. I have some, so PM me if you like and I can share.

Thanks.

MATLAB is used mostly by engineers for FEA and other engineering related applications. Most of academic institutions have licensed version of this software along with the tutorials. Writing your own source code in any of HLL is always convenient .

Dear

I used MATLAB to University too many years ago!! Matlab is a program to work with matrix but It has low performance to improve FEM simulation, if you want learn more about simulation with matlab I can suggest you the book: "the finite element method using matlab" of Young W. Knwon and Bang. It's of to learn more about FEM method but you have result only ease mechanical application. If you want to improve knowledge on fluid dinamic application there are many commercial program: FLuent CFD of COMSOL or ABAQUS and more...

Max

MATLAB is definitely not free (there's a yearly license fee), but it's probably the best and has the most support. If you're looking for free, there are some free look alikes out there: eg Python, SciLab, R.

There may be a few more, I just can't think of them right now. I tried a couple of these on my laptop at home, but I don't think I have sufficient RAM installed to run them (it's an old laptop).

They all have a learning curve, and they're similar enough to be confusing if you use more than one.

Capt,

I've been using Matlab for quite a few years and it's a pretty powerfull analysis engine. There are several products that are part of the Matlab family. The unfortunate thing about the product is the cost - it's pricey. If your looking for open source (freeware) solvers there was a good article in Machine Design Magazine a few months ago that listed several. Try searching the mag site for "Attack of the math software clones" and you should find what you are looking for.

After reading all of your wonderful comments it looks like I'm better off not even getting involved with MATLAB for two primary reasons: Prohibited Costs, and steep learning curve.

I don't have the luxury of excess time on my hand to tinker around with this MATLAB software of clone(s), so for now I'll stay with my current crop of Excel engineering analysis & design spreadsheets of all types, my structural design software, my geotech software, my hydraulics software, and my hydrology software of all types. They've served me very well so far.

Thanks for all of the valuable input everyone!

Captain-

For those of us without the guarantee of a supporting income stream from an investment (financial and learning curve) into new software, I would like to suggest some of the Open Source alternatives:

Scilab, my personal favorite (mostly because I have years of experience with it). Good modeling package in Xcos.

Octave, probably more familiar to those with Matlab experience

Sage, offering an intriguing approach to the human interface, which you may or may not find useful.

All of these have pretty much the same basic capabilities as Matlab, although their are some specialized modules available in Matlab that might not be totally compatible with the Open Source solutions. On the other hand, there are certain areas where the alternatives are far superior to Matlab.

All of them offer extensive tutorials and documentation, as well as active, helpful forums. I know that there are commercial textbooks being sold that are based on Scilab and on Octave- I haven't explored the liturature available for Sage. One issue with Scilab- a lot of the really good documentation is in French.

Straying a bit away from your originally-expressed goals, you may also want to have a look at R (originally a statistics package, but expanded, and continuing to expand to cover virtually the entire maths universe) and KNIME (an interesting approach to setting up problem flows, compatible with R, and you can import your own functions- again, infinitely extensible). Of course, infinite extensibility comes with the downside of growing complexity...