ABSTRACT
In building a modern and advanced engineering system, engineers must undertake a very sophisticated process in modeling, simulation, visualization, analysis, designing, prototyping, testing, fabrication, and construction. The process is illustrated in the flowchart shown in Figure 1.1. The process is often iterative in nature; that is, some of the procedures are repeated based on the assessment of the results obtained at the current stage to achieve optimal performance. This book deals with topics related mainly to modeling and simulation, which are
underlined in Figure 1.1. The focus will be on mathematical, numerical and computational modeling, and simulation. These topics play an increasingly important role in building advanced engineering systems in rapid and cost-effective ways. Many computational methods and numerical techniques can be employed to deal with these topics. This book mainly focuses on the development and applications of the meshfree methods. This chapter addresses the overall procedures of modeling and simulation using mesh-
free methods and the overall differences in key numerical techniques between the meshfree methods and other existing methods, especially the well-known and widely used finite element method (FEM) [1-3]. General procedure of meshfree methods is outlined, and common preliminary techniques for different meshfree methods are discussed in detail, including triangulation, determination of local support domains, influence domains, estimation of nodal spacing, and local support node selection techniques. Some of the discussions may be found too ‘‘heavy.’’ Readers are advised to skim
through these materials.
