The analysis of singular perturbed differential equations began early in this century, when approximate solutions were constructed from asymptotic ex pansions. (Preliminary attempts appear in the nineteenth century [vD94].) This technique has flourished since the mid-1960s. Its principal ideas and methods are described in several textbooks. Nevertheless, asymptotic ex pansions may be impossible to construct or may fail to simplify the given problem; then numerical approximations are often the only option. The systematic study of numerical methods for singular perturbation problems started somewhat later - in the 1970s. While the research frontier has been steadily pushed back, the exposition of new developments in the analysis of numerical methods has been neglected. Perhaps the only example of a textbook that concentrates on this analysis is [DMS80], which collects various results for ordinary differential equations, but many methods and techniques that are relevant today (especially for partial differential equa tions) were developed after 1980.Thus contemporary researchers must comb the literature to acquaint themselves with earlier work. Our purposes in writing this introductory book are twofold. First, we aim to present a structured account of recent ideas in the numerical analysis of singularly perturbed differential equations. Second, this important area has many open problems and we hope that our book will stimulate further investigations.Our choice of topics is inevitably personal and reflects our own main interests.

Accurate modeling of the interaction between convective and diffusive processes is one of the most common challenges in the numerical approximation of partial differential equations. This is partly due to the fact that numerical algorithms, and the techniques used for their analysis, tend to be very different in the two limiting cases of elliptic and hyperbolic equations. Many different ideas and approaches have been proposed in widely differing contexts to resolve the difficulties of exponential fitting, compact differencing, number upwinding, artificial viscosity, streamline diffusion, Petrov-Galerkin and evolution Galerkin being some examples from the main fields of finite difference and finite element methods. The main aim of this volume is to draw together all these ideas and see how they overlap and differ. The reader is provided with a useful and wide ranging source of algorithmic concepts and techniques of analysis. The material presented has been drawn both from theoretically oriented literature on finite differences, finite volume and finite element methods and also from accounts of practical, large-scale computing, particularly in the field of computational fluid dynamics.

Finite volume methods are used for various applications in fluid dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics, structural analysis or nuclear physics. A closer look reveals many interesting phenomena and mathematical or numerical difficulties, such as true error analysis and adaptivity, modelling of multi-phase phenomena or fitting problems, stiff terms in convection/diffusion equations and sources. To overcome existing problems and to find solution methods for future applications requires many efforts and always new developments. The goal of The International Symposium on Finite Volumes for Complex Applications VI is to bring together mathematicians, physicists and engineers dealing with Finite Volume Techniques in a wide context. This book, divided in two volumes, brings a critical look at the subject (new ideas, limits or drawbacks of methods, theoretical as well as applied topics).