Present and future of the numerical methods in buildings and infrastructures areas of biosystems engineering

Abstract

Biosystem engineering is a discipline resulting from the evolution of the traditional agricultural engineering to include new engineering challenges related with biological systems, from the cell to the environment. Modern buildings and infrastructures are needed to satisfy crop and animal production demands. In this paper a review on the status of numerical methods applied to solve engineering problems in the field of buildings and infrastructures in biosystem engineering is presented. The history and basic background of the finite element method is presented. This is the first numerical method implemented and also the more developed one. The history and background of other two more recent methods, with practical applications, the computer fluids dynamics and the discrete element method are also presented. Besides, a review on the scientific and professional applications on the field of buildings and infrastructures for biosystem engineering needs is presented. Today we can simulate engineering problems with solids, engineering problems with fluids and engineering problems with particles and get to practical solutions faster and cheaper than in the past. The paper encourages young engineers and researchers to make progress these tools and their engineering applications. The capacities of all numerical methods in their present development status go beyond the present practical applications. There is a broad field to work on it. IntroductionThe present paper is a review of the numerical methods at present and their applications in solving engineering problems. The field is too wide to be considered in a single article. This is why the paper focuses on presenting the fundamentals of the most significant numerical methods that can be applied for buildings and infrastructures areas of biosystems engineering. The three next numerical methods will be considered: i) finite element method (FEM); ii) computer fluid dynamics (CFD); iii) discrete element method (DEM).In the paper the main features of these methods will be presented along with showing some examples in areas of biosystems engineering. Modern engineering can be considered to begin with the industrial revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. From the very beginning, it has used the most powerful mathematical tools of the time in order to solve problems arising in practice. It was considered a fact that it was essential acquiring solid mathematical foundations for being a good engineer. The programs of studies from all Universities of the time prove it so. Even great figures on mathematics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were formally engineers. This symbiosis has produced good results for society. In the second half of XX Century, the fast development of computer science produced a great advance in numerical methods applied to physics and engineering.Based on this premise, the predictable future is that calculation and structural analysis in all fields of engineering will be based on modern numerical methods. This power...

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