Computer Applications for Engineers using Excel

Abstract

Engineering students usually take at an early stage of their study a preliminary course on computer applications that introduces them to the world of computers and their various applications. This course equips the students with the basic skills needed for wordprocessing and data analyses. After studying the basic engineering subjects, they take an intermediate-level course on computer applications the aim of which is to train the students on the essential computational methods needed for engineering design analyses. Although the various engineering specialisations involve different types of design analyses, there are essential computational methods which are needed by most of them. The commonly-shared methods are those for the solution of linear systems of equations, solution of non-linear equations, solution of ordinary and partial differential equations, and the methods for iterative solutions and optimisation analyses. All these types of computer-oriented methods are frequently encountered in the three thermofluid subjects, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat-transfer, which are also fundamental subjects for most engineering specialisations including civil, chemical, and mechanical engineering. Therefore, this book illustrates the use of computational methods for engineering design analyses by focussing on the area of thermofluid analyses. By adopting a practical engineering approach rather than a purely mathematical one, the book differs from most other books written for the same subject.

A number of dedicated computer platforms and specialised applications have been used for the intended purpose of this book. However, apart from being unavailable or unaffordable to many students, these applications tend to provide black-box solutions and take time to master. As a modelling platform, this book uses Microsoft Excel which is general-purpose spreadsheet application that is widely available, easy to learn, and allows the students to develop white-box models for their analyses. Excel is also one of the mostly used software by practicing engineers. The Excel-based modelling platform used in the book has four elements; (i) Excel with its user-interface and built-in functions, (ii) the Solver add-in that comes with Excel, (iii), the integrated programming language Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and (iv) an Excel add-in for fluid properties called Thermax. While the main components of the platform, Excel and Solver, are adequate for most fluid mechanics and heat-transfer analyses, Thermax helps the students to perform thermodynamic analyses and VBA is needed for the development of custom functions when the analytical model cannot be applied by only using Excel’s built-in functions and Thermax functions. Appropriately used, the Excel-based modeling platform with its four components minimises the effort of developing white-box analytical models so that more attention can be paid to the application of the relevant engineering principles.