NUMERICAL LINEAR ALGEBRA WITH APPLICATIONSNumer. Linear Algebra Appl.2000;7:361

Guest Editorial: Numerical linear algebra methods forcomputational fluid flow problems

Fluid mechanics can be considered as one of the most representative scientific disciplines expressingvery close ties between theoretical approaches to problem solving and practical aspects of computation.This issue confirms this statement by characterizing numerical mathematics as mathematics realizedon computer equipment.

It is well known that many methods that are very efficient at solving symmetric positive definiteproblems may not be as efficient at solving problems of fluid flow. Among such methods one cancount various multigrid and cascade techniques, domain decomposition methods and other approachesof contemporary interest. A special feature of fluid flow problems is the utilization of non-stationaryapproaches for solving stationary problems. Thus, either new, possibly more sophisticated, methods orinnovative variants of well known methods, in particular those devoted to time dependent problems,have to be invented.

A collection of new computational methods is presented in this Special Issue. This collection rep-resents various topics and various approaches to solving some fluid flow problems of much currentimportance. Many new ideas combined with already well examined ones show a variety of linearalgebra tools and methods developed and utilized in contemporary computations.

As Guest Editor of this Special Issue, I would be gratified if the papers collected here were to becomea valuable source of information for researchers working in the field of fluid flow, and perhaps in otherfields as well.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am indebted to the authors for submitting such high quality contributions to this Special Issue and to the refereesfor their careful work. Last but not least, I express my sincere thanks to Dr Maya Neytcheva for helping me inmy duties as Guest Editor.

Ivo MarekPrague, Czech Republic

Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.