Hey all,

I'm searching today for information on either F/OSS projects or
literature on electrical system simulation. I'm not sure if SPICES or
ngspices is able to do what I want.

In particular, I'd like to do a simulation where something absurd
happens- like smashing a NEMA 5-15 plug into, say, a BS 546 outlet,
and then seeing what sort of dangerous electrical results that might
happen. For instance, some cords aren't going to be able to handle the
differences in voltage or frequency. And for simple circuits,
components aren't rated for various extremes either.

"Magic smoke". I guess I'm looking for failure mode simulation. For
instance, running 5.6 W on a 5 W-rated resistor, is just a bad idea,
and I don't really need to visually see smoke, but it would be nice to
see if there are any systems that can identify this. Would it be as
simple as checking across all connected components for wattage ratings
lower than the maximum that the power supply provides?

Math like Faraday's, Gauss', Kirchoff's, Ohm's, Norton's, Thevenin's,
and Millman's theorems and laws are helpful, but they don't seem to
tell me much about how badly things will fail. In mechanical design, I
can do finite element analysis (FEA) and get some resulting deltas and
graphs for showing a distribution of forces, heat, stress, etc., but
that's with either finite elements or fluids, so what are my options
in electronics?

Thank you. :-)

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

Automated Design Lab
University of Texas at Austin
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