A good understanding of turbulent compressible flows is essential to the design and operation of high-speed vehicles. Such flows occur, for example, in the external flow over the surfaces of supersonic aircraft, and in the internal flow through the engines. Our ability to predict the aerodynamic lift, drag, propulsion and maneuverability of high-speed vehicles is crucially dependent on our knowledge of turbulent shear layers, and our understanding of their behavior in the presence of shock waves and regions of changing pressure. Turbulent Shear Layers in Supersonic Flow provides a comprehensive introduction to the field, and helps provide a basis for future work in this area. Wherever possible we use the available experimental work, and the results from numerical simulations to illustrate and develop a physical understanding of turbulent compressible flows.

The European Turbulence Conferences have been organized under the auspices of the European Mechanics Committee (Euromech) to provide a forum for discussion and exchange of recent and new results in the field of turbulence. The first conference was organized in Lyon in 1986 with 152 participants. The second and third conferences were held in Berlin (1988) and Stockholm (1990) with 165 and 172 participants respectively. The fourth was organized in Delft from 30 June to 3 July 1992 by the J.M. Burgers Centre. There were 214 participants from 22 countries. This steadily growing number of participants demonstrates both the success and need for this type of conference. The main topics of the Fourth European Turbulence Conference were: Dynamical Systems and Transition; Statistical Physics and Turbulence; Experiments and Novel Experimental Techniques; Particles and Bubbles in Turbulence; Simulation Methods; Coherent Structures; Turbulence Modelling and Compressibility Effects. In addition a special session was held on the subject of CeBular Automata. Each of the sessions was introduced with a survey lecture. The lecturers were: W. Eckhaus, AJ. Libchaber, L. Katgerman, F. Durst, M. Lesieur, B. Legras, D.G. Dritschel and P. Bradshaw. The contributions of the participants were subdivided into oral and poster presentations. In addition to the normal program, some Speciai Interest Groups of Ercoftac (European Research Community on Flow, Turbulence and Combustion) presented their research activities in the form of a poster.