ETT 2004
IV BRAZILIAN SCHOOL OF TRANSITION AND TURBULENCE

Presentation of the School

Turbulence is a phenomenon that can be found in almost all kinds of flow offiuids, in nature and industry. The airflow in the atmosphere, as well as the water flow in rivers and oceans are usually turbulent. In process industry, in pipelines, heat exchangers, ventilation and climatization systems, turbulence is responsible for the performance of these equipments. In aeronautical and car industries, aerodynamical performance and the efficiency of combustion processes are directly influenced by the turbulence level of the participating fluids.

Due to its nature, trubulent is considered "the most complicated movement in physics". For its analysis, turbulence requires the most sophisticated experimental techniques as well as the most powerful computational resources, from programs to computers.

The objective of ETT 2004 - IV Brazilian School of Transition and Turbulence is to continue the work initiated by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UFRJ, in 1998. Promoted by the ABCM - Brazilian Association for Mechanical Engineering and Sciences, the First Turbulence School gathered univesity professors, researchers and students, with a view to the difusion of theoretical and applied aspects of turbulence and transition with both numerical and experimental points of view.

The success of the First School, lead to the organization of a second one in Uberlância ( Federal University of Uberlância - UFU) in 2000, and in 2002 in Florianópolis ( Federal University os Santa Catarina), becoming a regular event of ABCM.

Due to the benefits in the dissemination of the knowledge in the subjects of transition and turbulence and due to the fruitful interaction of professors, researchers and students, the continuation of the School is a natural process.

ETT 2004 is promoted by ABCM, hosted and organized by the two greatest universities in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, the Pontifical Chatolic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to our Universities, specially for the support given by the Graduate Program in Mechanical Engineering (PROMEC/UFRGS) as well as to our departments: Department of Mechanical Engineering (DEMEC/UFRGS), Department of Nuclear Engineering (DENUC/UFRGS), Hydraulics Research Institute (IPH/UFRGS) and the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics (DEM/PUC-RS).

We are also grateful to the support given by the official national financing agencies: CAPES — Ministry of Education, CNPq — Scientifical and Technological Development Council, FINEP — Studies and Projects Financing Agency and, in our State, FAPERGS — Foundation for Support of the Research of Rio Grande do Sul. Our thanks also to EMBRAER, CNEN¬Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission and to VENDITORE Inform6tica, Porto Alegre, for the additional financial support.

Finally, we would like to register our gratitude to the invited lecturers from Brazil and abroad, who dedicated most of their time on the preparation of high quality texts for the School and came a long way to Porto Alegre to share their valuable knowledge with the transition and turbulence community in Brazil.