Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to introduce numerical methods to students of engineering and science and practicing engineers and provides common engineering problems to demonstrate the computational procedures. The use of any computational method, analytical or numerical, without the proper understanding of the limitations and shortcomings can have serious consequences. Whereas the engineers of past generations were limited to graphical, analytical, and simple empirical methods, engineers can consider numerical and simulation methods in their design work. The increased complexity of the numerical and simulation methods is believed to improve the accuracy of the solutions, and since these methods are easily implemented with a computer, the increased effort over the less detailed methods is minimal. Numerical analysis can be used with functions with a moderately complex structure, and it is easy to include constraints on the unknowns in the solution.