Problems In Applied Industrial And Engineering Mathematics

This book contains contributions by sixteen editors of a single journal specialised in real-world applications of mathematics, particularly in engineering. These papers serve to indicate that applying mathematics can be a very exciting and intellectually rewarding activity. Among the applied fields we note Thermal and Marangoni convection. High-pressure gas-discharge lamps, Potential flow in a channel, Thin airfoil problems, Cooling of a fibre, Moving-contact-line problems, Spot disturbance in boundary layers, Fibre-reinforced composites, Numerics of nonuniform grids, Stewartson layers on a rotating disk, Causality and the radiation condition, Nonlinear elastic membranes, Acoustics in bubbly liquids, Oscillation of a floating body in a viscous fluid, Electromagnetics of superconducting composites. Applied mathematicians, theoretical physicists and engineers will find a lot in this book that will be of interest to them.

Industrial mathematics is a fast growing field within the mathematical sciences. It is characterized by the origin of the problems which it engages; they all come from industry: research and development, finances, and communications. The common feature running through this enterprise is the goal of gaining a better understanding of industrial models and processes through mathematical ideas and computations. The authors of this book have undertaken the approach of presenting real industrial problems and their mathematical modeling as a motivation for developing mathematical methods that are needed for solving the problems. With each chapter presenting one important problem that arises in today's industry, and then studying the problem by mathematical analysis and computation, this book introduces the reader to many new ideas and methods from ordinary and partial differential equations, and from integral equations and control theory. It brings the excitement of real industrial problems into the undergraduate mathematical curriculum. The problems selected are accessible to students who have already taken what in many colleges and universities constitutes the first two-year basic Calculus sequence. A working knowledge of Fortran, Pascal, or C language is required.

Industrial Mathematics is a relatively recent discipline. It is concerned primarily with transforming technical, organizational and economic problems posed by indus try into mathematical problems; "solving" these problems byapproximative methods of analytical and/or numerical nature; and finally reinterpreting the results in terms of the original problems. In short, industrial mathematics is modelling and scientific computing of industrial problems. Industrial mathematicians are bridge-builders: they build bridges from the field of mathematics to the practical world; to do that they need to know about both sides, the problems from the companies and ideas and methods from mathematics. As mathematicians, they have to be generalists. If you enter the world of indus try, you never know which kind of problems you will encounter, and which kind of mathematical concepts and methods you will need to solve them. Hence, to be a good "industrial mathematician" you need to know a good deal of mathematics as well as ideas already common in engineering and modern mathematics with tremen dous potential for application. Mathematical concepts like wavelets, pseudorandom numbers, inverse problems, multigrid etc., introduced during the last 20 years have recently started entering the world of real applications. Industrial mathematics consists of modelling, discretization, analysis and visu alization. To make a good model, to transform the industrial problem into a math ematical one such that you can trust the prediction of the model is no easy task.

Building a bridge between mathematicians and industry is both a chal lenging task and a valuable goal for the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA). The rationale for the existence of the IMA is to en courage interaction between mathematicians and scientists who use math ematics. Some of this interaction should evolve around industrial problems which mathematicians may be able to solve in "real time." Both Industry and Mathematics benefit: Industry, by increase of mathematical knowledge and ideas brought to bear upon their concerns, and Mathematics, through the infusion of exciting new problems. In the past ten months I have visited numerous industries and national laboratories, and met with several hundred scientists to discuss mathe matical questions which arise in specific industrial problems. Many of the problems have special features which existing mathematical theories do not encompass; such problems may open new directions for research. However, I have encountered a substantial number of problems to which mathemati cians should be able to contribute by providing either rigorous proofs or formal arguments. The majority of scientists with whom I met were engineers, physicists, chemists, applied mathematicians and computer scientists. I have found them eager to share their problems with the mathematical community. Often their only recourse with a problem is to "put it on the computer." However, further insight could be gained by mathematical analysis.

An undergraduate text focussing on mathematical modelling stimulated by contemporary industrial problems.

When the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) launched its collabora tive research centre or SFB (Sonderforschungsbereich) 438 "Mathematical Modelling, Simulation, and Verification in Material-Oriented Processes and Intelligent Systems" in July 1997 at the Technische Vniversitat Munchen and at the Vniversitat Augsburg, southern Bavaria got its second nucleus of the still young discipline scientific computing. Whereas the first and older one, FORTWIHR, the Bavarian Consortium for High Performance Scientific Com puting, had put its main emphasis on the supercomputing aspect, this new initiative was now expected to focus on the mathematical part. Consequently, throughout all of the five main research topics (A) adaptive materials and thin layers, (B) adaptive materials in medicine, (C) robotics, aeronautics, and automobile technology, (D) microstructured devices and systems, and (E) transport processes in flows, mathematical aspects play a predominant role. The formation of the SFB 438 and its scientific program are inextricably linked with the name of Karl-Heinz Hoffmann. As full professor for applied mathematics in Augsburg (1981-1991) and in Munchen (since 1992) and as dean of the faculty of mathematics at the TV Munchen, he was the driv ing force of this fascinating, but not always easy-to-realize idea of bringing together scientists from mathematics, physics, engineering, informatics, and medicine for joint efforts in modern applied mathematics. However, scarcely work had begun when the successful captain was called to take command on a bigger boat.