Computational model

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title: "Computational model" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["models-of-computation", "mathematical-modeling"] description: "Mathematical model of a complex system" topic_path: "general/models-of-computation" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_model" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Mathematical model of a complex system ::

A computational model uses computers to simulate and study complex systems using an algorithmic or mechanistic approach and is widely used in a diverse range of fields spanning from physics, engineering, chemistry and biology to economics, psychology, cognitive science and computer science.

The system under study is often a complex nonlinear system for which simple, intuitive analytical solutions are not readily available. Rather than deriving a mathematical analytical solution to the problem, experimentation with the model is done by adjusting the parameters of the system in the computer, and studying the differences in the outcome of the experiments. Operation theories of the model can be derived/deduced from these computational experiments.

Examples of common computational models are weather forecasting models, earth simulator models, flight simulator models, virtual cells, molecular protein folding models, computational materials models Computational Engineering Models (CEM), and neural network models.

References

References

1. (May 2020). "Computational Modeling".
2. "Computational Modelling in Space Physics".
3. "What is Computational Engineering?".
4. (2017). "Nanoscience and its Applications".
5. (2021-04-14). "Computational Modeling in Developmental Biology".
6. (2020). "AIAA Scitech 2020 Forum".
7. "Computational models - Latest research and news".
8. (2025). "Stochastic reconstruction of multiphase composite microstructures using statistics-encoded neural network for poro/micro-mechanical modelling". Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.
9. (2023). "Hierarchical reconstruction of 3D well-connected porous media from 2D exemplars using statistics-informed neural network". Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.
10. "Computational Modelling in Engineering".

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