Duetotheenormousprogressincomputertechnologyandnumericalmethods thathavebeenachievedinrecentyears,theuseofnumericalsimulation me- ods in industry gains more and more importance. In particular, this applies to all engineering disciplines. Numerical computations in many cases o?er a cost e?ective and, therefore, very attractive possibility for the investigation and optimization of products and processes. Besidestheneedfordevelopersofcorrespondingsoftware,thereisastrong - and still rapidly growing - demand for quali?ed specialists who are able to e?ciently apply numerical simulation tools to complex industrial problems. The successful and e?cient application of such tools requires certain basic knowledge about the underlying numerical methodologies and their possib- ities with respect to speci?c applications. The major concern of this book is the impartation of this knowledge in a comprehensive way. The text gives a practice oriented introduction in modern numerical me- ods as they typically are applied in engineering disciplines like mechanical, chemical, or civil engineering.
In corresponding applications the by far most frequent tasks are related to problems from heat transfer, structural mech- ics, and ?uid mechanics, which, therefore, constitute a thematical focus of the text. Thetopicmustbeseenasastronglyinterdisciplinary?eldinwhichaspects of numerical mathematics, natural sciences, computer science, and the cor- sponding engineering area are simultaneously important. As a consequence, usually the necessary information is distributed in di?erent textbooks from the individual disciplines. In the present text the subject matter is presented in a comprehensive multidisciplinary way, where aspects from the di?erent ?elds are treated insofar as it is necessary for general understanding.