What is the importance of the engineer in computer simulation?
Nowadays, engineering counts on specialized software in the development of new products. This technology is known as CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) and encompasses a whole series of systems that help the professional from the analysis of basic physics to more complex systems. Despite simplifying the process of project development, their correct operation requires an engineer who has knowledge in the physical sciences and the abstraction capacity to create a computational model from a real product.
The knowledge acquired by the engineering professional during the years of learning – and different subjects taken in college – provide him/her with the knowledge of mathematical models that aim to explain how the phenomena happen. These models are simplified representations of the real process, but have the function of understanding the relevant variables, discarding those that do not significantly change the behavior of the process and make the model excessively complex.
Computer simulation software
In this sense, the proper choice of each mathematical model to study the projects is the responsibility of the simulation engineer (who may have different backgrounds: mechanical, chemical, electrical, among others). This professional has the necessary knowledge to analyze which of the variables have a significant impact on the functioning of the product and discard those that have very little influence.
Simulation software is getting more and more complex. They add more complete models and different physical phenomena have been incorporated to basic models, and are also known as multiphysics, because they allow the analysis in different simulation domains. These programs help the CAE engineer to simulate the behavior of products under various conditions and to evaluate the influence of a variable on the item.
Although increasingly evolved, computer simulation systems act only in the numerical model solving phase, leaving it up to the CAE engineer to correctly select the relevant variables for the project and evaluate the quality of the simulation results. Therefore, the engineer is responsible for feeding the numerical simulation with relevant and accurate information in order to achieve the best result.
