The development of high-order accurate numerical discretization
techniques for irregular domains and meshes is often cited as one of the
remaining chal- lenges facing the field of computational fluid dynamics.
In structural me- chanics, the advantages of high-order finite element
approximation are widely recognized. This is especially true when
high-order element approximation is combined with element refinement
(h-p refinement). In computational fluid dynamics, high-order
discretization methods are infrequently used in the com- putation of
compressible fluid flow. The hyperbolic nature of the governing
equations and the presence of solution discontinuities makes high-order
ac- curacy difficult to achieve. Consequently, second-order accurate
methods are still predominately used in industrial applications even
though evidence sug- gests that high-order methods may offer a way to
significantly improve the resolution and accuracy for these
calculations. To address this important topic, a special course was
jointly organized by the Applied Vehicle Technology Panel of NATO's
Research and Technology Organization (RTO), the von Karman Institute for
Fluid Dynamics, and the Numerical Aerospace Simulation Division at the
NASA Ames Research Cen- ter. The NATO RTO sponsored course entitled
"Higher Order Discretization Methods in Computational Fluid Dynamics"
was held September 14-18,1998 at the von Karman Institute for Fluid
Dynamics in Belgium and September 21-25,1998 at the NASA Ames Research
Center in the United States.