Present and future of the numerical methods in buildings and infrastructures areas of biosystems engineering

Abstract

Biosystem engineering is a discipline resulting from the evolution of the traditional agricultural engineering to include new engineering challenges related with biological systems, from the cell to the environment. Modern buildings and infrastructures are needed to satisfy crop and animal production demands. In this paper a review on the status of numerical methods applied to solve engineering problems in the field of buildings and infrastructures in biosystem engineering is presented. The history and basic background of the finite element method is presented. This is the first numerical method implemented and also the more developed one. The history and background of other two more recent methods, with practical applications, the computer fluids dynamics and the discrete element method are also presented. Besides, a review on the scientific and professional applications on the field of buildings and infrastructures for biosystem engineering needs is presented. Today we can simulate engineering problems with solids, engineering problems with fluids and engineering problems with particles and get to practical solutions faster and cheaper than in the past. The paper encourages young engineers and researchers to make progress these tools and their engineering applications. The capacities of all numerical methods in their present development status go beyond the present practical applications. There is a broad field to work on it.

Keywords

• numerical methods, finite and discrete element method, computer fluids dynamics, agricultural buildings, rural infrastructures.