Excel for Engineers and other STEM Professionals Part 6: Accumulation and Initialisation

In this series of articles, I started by discussing the spreadsheetas a computing environment developed with a primary goal ofsupporting the paradigm of end-user computing. Because of this, the ‘normal’ spreadsheet is utterly devoid of any of the structure that normally allows us, as simulation engineers, to express and formulate problems of flow or structural mechanics for solution.

This article is intended to bring the discussion of array formulas that has run through the previous five issues, to a close. First, however, how did your World Cup 2018 predictions go? Mine were way off the mark! What I was fascinated to learn though, was that over 150,000 copies of our free challenge template were downloaded [1]. I guess I have yet to come to terms with the impact of the internet. What I can be certain of, though, is that none of my research papers on structural and multidisciplinary optimisation or composites design will have received circulation on that scale.