Revolutionary advances in hardware and software technology have made computer aided design and analysis a standard tool in engineering practice. This obviously puts a lot of power in the hands of the end user, in order to use these tools wisely and interpret the results correctly, users are expected to have a sound knowledge of the relationship between
the physical world and the mathematical model and that between the mathematical model and the numerical approximation.
The text is intended for both senior level undergraduate and first year graduate students without a comprehensive numerical background. Motivation for the text has grown from the authors' need to provide a text which covers both advanced features of numerical methods and specific applications in process and mechanical engineering.
An important complement to the text are the MATLAB* algorithms that appear throughout. Soft copies of these algorithms are available at http: //websrv.mece.ualberta.ca/mrflynn/mnhf mfiles/. Students are encouraged to download, run and modify the .m files in question so as to accelerate their understanding of both MATLAB and numerical methods more generally. Also, for students who are new to MATLAB, the material of Appendix A is designed to highlight key features associated with this powerful computational tool