Computational methods

Abstract

© 2014, The Author(s). The complexity found in solving engineering problems and analyzing its physical phenomena leads to the development of computational methods and techniques to find numerical solutions to the set of differential equations describing the process under study. The methods used in computational MHD are mainly a combination of techniques employed in computational fluid dynamics and computational electromagnetism. The complexity arises due to the presence of a magnetic field and its coupling with the fluid. One of the important issues found is to numerically maintain the conservation of magnetic flux condition to avoid any unphysical effects. A brief description of finite elements, finite differences, finite difference time domain, and Monte Carlo methods is presented with the intention of providing a general understanding of the computational and numerical methods used in computational engineering science and computational physics.