Computational fluid dynamics in Europe, a personal view M. Napolitano

This review paper describes some major contributions provided by European scientists to the development of CFD from the early 70s to the end of the 20th century. Particular attention has been paid to those authors who have contributed to the success of the ICNMFD, started in 1969 (Novosibirsk) from a joint effort of scientists involved in the space race in the USA and the USSR, and of the ISCFD, started in 1995 (Tokyo) as a Pacific competitor to the ICNMFD. These two very important biennial international conferences have then merged into the ICCFD, starting from the year 2000, thanks to the efforts of the two scientific committees, promoted by prof. Oshima and the author. The majority of the authors whose work is the subject of this paper have been members of one or more of the Scientific Committees of the three aforementioned conferences, usually after having been selected to provide invited lectures to the same. Their choice is the sole responsibility of the author and is certainly incomplete and biased towards more applied, rather than theoretical CFD. Also, they are often personal friends of the author who has been a member of the CFD community for 40 years. Thus, this paper does not consider younger scientists, independently of the value of their contributions. Moreover, it is noteworthy that European CFD has always been strictly interconnected with US CFD. Some of the authors have started their careers in Europe and are now living and working in the USA (e.g., Glowinski, Roe, Van Leer); others have obtained their Ph.D. in the USA (e. g., Launder, Napolitano), and all of them have worked together with US scientists, so that it is difficult to distinguish between European and US CFD. For those who moved to the USA, their contributions prior to their move have been favored. Last but not least, each of the authors discussed in this work has been asked-by an e-mail that I hope reached them-to write a draft of his own chapter so as to provide the most authoritative review of his contributions. Those who have done so have been duly acknowledged. The other ones will have to forgive the author for an inadequate description of their merits.