This three credit course offeredat Macomb Community Collegeprovides an introduction toalternating current (AC)motors, AC motor controls, and AC motor applications tobattery electric and hybrid electric vehicles (BEVs and HEVs). Course topics include fundamental concepts of electricity and magnetism, AC motors, traction motors, AC synchronous permanent magnet motors, HEV/BEV energy storage and control systems, adjustable frequency drives, and modeling of various components associated with electric drivevehicles in MatLab and Simulink software. Included educational materials for this course are a syllabus and PowerPoint presentations. Homework assignments and exams are not included. This course is required as a part of MCC's Electric VehicleDevelopmentTechnology Certificate and the course outline is as follows: introduction to single-phase motors, motor operation theory, basic motor controls, introduction to three phase motors, three-phase motor controls, theory of operation for adjustable frequency drives, configuring drive parameters, simulation of parameters using MatLab software, and simulation of electric vehicle parameters using Simulink software.

Commercial simulation software for solar plants is readily available, but source codes are not. Many articles in the open literature give governing equations and algorithms for solar plant simulations, but adopters must program them themselves. This paper presents an open-source, ready-to-run, model of a parabolic trough solar field with a user-friendly interface in the Simulink® environment. The intention is to provide a foundational tool for the solar thermal research community, similar to the Tennessee Eastman Challenge Problem employed for chemical processes. The flow rate of the heat transfer fluid (HTF) and the angle of incidence are the manipulated variables of the model. The size of the solar field may be altered. Both open- and closed-loop responses to disturbances may be investigated. The source code of the model is freely available at the Open Educational Resource Commons, which investigators can utilize and extend.