Domain

Details

Engineering modeling

• Modeling is to engineering what wings are to birds
• Its importance to the engineering process cannot be over-emphasized more
• An engineering model concept is the same as a showcase fashion model - to represent reality through the eyes of the designer
• Research has pointed out that experts instinctively synthesize patterns, forms & trends from reality (which is predominantly complex, dynamic & intertwined)
• In engineering, these patterns are given concrete forms through models based on:

1. Assumptions (reduction of complexity, viable for new insights & suitable for partial or complete solution)
2. Formulation of governing descriptions using appropriate representations and identified logic

Overview of modeling process

• In the humble opinion of the author, the modeling process:

1. Identification & observation of phenomena: physical (conventional), biological (contemporary)
2. Assumptions as foundations: of materials, geometry, constitutive (stress-strain external-internal) relations in existing knowledge
3. Diagrammatic representations: from simple to complex for representation of free-bodies
4. Parameter representations: of targeted factors influencing the interested phenomenon in terms of (scalars, vectors & tensors) with (magnitudes, directions & orientations) in (points, lines, surfaces & volumes) within (arrays, fields & spaces)
5. References: as the basis (datum or axis) for propagation of engineering logic to the parameters
6. Formulation: progression from the fundamentals of assumptions to the application of engineering logic & mathematics to reach the engineering governing representations of the phenomenon in terms of (equations)
7. Insights: within the (focus & limitations) of the formulation, verify formulation validation; if within confidence range, derive modeled characteristics for (implications, behaviour & uses)
8. Solutions: through analytical (closed-form, complicated but focused) means, numerical recipes (weak-form, further assumptions, truncations, rounding-off, computations) or conversion to other representations (transformations to state spaces, A/D, D/A with interpolation, decimation or complete) with the results in (partial solution of non-linear forms or complete solution of linear forms)