Shock capturing
In computational fluid dynamics, shock-capturing methods are a class of techniques for computing inviscid flows with shock waves. The computation of flow containing shock waves is an extremely difficult task because such flows result in sharp, discontinuous changes in flow variables such as pressure, temperature, density, and velocity across the shock.
In shock-capturing methods, the governing equations of inviscid flows (i.e. Euler equations) are cast in conservation form and any shock waves or discontinuities are computed as part of the solution. Here, no special treatment is employed to take care of the shocks themselves, which is in contrast to the shock-fitting method, where shock waves are explicitly introduced in the solution using appropriate shock relations (Rankine–Hugoniot relations). The shock waves predicted by shock-capturing methods are generally not sharp and may be smeared over several grid elements. Also, classical shock-capturing methods have the disadvantage that unphysical oscillations (Gibbs phenomenon) may develop near strong shocks.
The Euler equations are the governing equations for inviscid flow. To implement shock-capturing methods, the conservation form of the Euler equations are used. For a flow without external heat transfer and work transfer (isoenergetic flow), the conservation form of the Euler equation in Cartesian coordinate system can be written as
where the vectors U, F, G, and H are given by
where is the total energy (internal energy + kinetic energy + potential energy) per unit mass. That is
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