A note on the effect of artificial viscosity on solutions of conservation laws Original Research Article

We consider central difference schemes with artificial viscosity terms for nonlinear hyperbolic systems. We analyze the influence of artificial viscosity on solutions with shocks of nonlinear hyperbolic problems in one dimension. Both stationary and moving shocks are considered. The analysis shows that for the Euler equations one can obtain well behaved (sharp) shock layers when a scalar viscosity coefficient is used. This is not true for a general system. Numerical computations of Burgersʹ equation and the Euler equations are presented. They support the results from the linear theory.