Summary

Focusing on physical applications in mechanics, the book's goal is to utilize concepts learned in a first-level engineering course to explore the benefits of computer usage in problem solving. *Addresses the important concepts related to solving engineering problems using a computer, the process of decomposing and structuring a problem so its solution can be efficiently implemented using a computer, the usefulness of graphics in the interpretation of results generated by computer analysis, the benefits of learning how to structure a problem to automatically generate the coefficients of a set of simultaneous equations, the use of simple iterative methods to solve complex problems, the need to be aware of the potential for numerical errors which are a result of the numerical solution strategy. *Presents numerous example problems which demonstrate each program. *Includes several thousand lines of carefully structured MATLAB code suitable for detailed study. *Several of the example programs are generalized solutions to important practical applications not presented in traditional texts.