Front tracking for gas dynamics

Front tracking is an adaptive computational method in which a lower dimensional moving grid is fitted to and follows the dynamical evolution of distinguished waves in a fluid flow. The method takes advantage of known analytic solutions, derived from the Rankine-Hugoniot relations, for idealized discontinuities. The method is applied to the Euler equations describing compressible gas dynamics. The main thrust is validation of the front tracking method: results are presented on a series of test problems for which comparison answers can be obtained by independent methods.