Design and analysis of tent cash flow models for engineering economy lectures

Engineering economy students are typically intimidated by arithmetic gradient series cash flows. Hence, it is beneficial to develop creative ways to make the material interesting and less formidable. This paper presents an innovative method of introducing students to the design and analysis of arithmetic gradient series cash flows in engineering economy courses. Several profiles of arithmetic gradient series cash flows are presented along with techniques of deriving closed form equations for their net present values. A "General Tent Equation" that can be used to solve various arithmetic gradient series cash flows is developed. A numerical example is used to show its implementation and usefulness.