Numerical Computation for Mechanical Engineers

Course Features

• Demonstration - video
• Online textbooks
• Assignments (no solutions)
• Exams and solutions

Course Highlights

The textbook used for this course, written by Prof. Patera and several MIT colleagues, is available for download in the readings section.

Course Description

This class introduces elementary programming concepts including variable types, data structures, and flow control. After an introduction to linear algebra and probability, it covers numerical methods relevant to mechanical engineering, including approximation (interpolation, least squares and statistical regression), integration, solution of linear and nonlinear equations, ordinary differential equations, and deterministic and probabilistic approaches. Examples are drawn from mechanical engineering disciplines, in particular from robotics, dynamics, and structural analysis. Assignments require MATLAB^® programming.

Other OCW Versions

OCW has published multiple versions of this subject.

• 2.086 Numerical Computation for Mechanical Engineers (Fall 2014)
• 2.086 Numerical Computation for Mechanical Engineers (Spring 2013)

Archived versions:

• 2.086 Numerical Computation for Mechanical Engineers (Spring 2012)

Course Sequences

This course is geared toward undergraduate students. A more advanced graduate-level treatment can be found in 16.920J/2.097J/6.339J Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations.

Course Collections

See related courses in the following collections:

Find Courses by Topic

• Mechanical Engineering
• Systems Engineering > Numerical Simulation
• Differential Equations
• Linear Algebra
• Probability and Statistics