Summary of the 24th International Symposium on Shock Waves

The 24th International Symposium on Shock Waves (ISSW24) was held at the Beijing Friendship Hotel from July 11 to July 16, 2004, in Beijing, China, after a one-year delay due to the SARS outbreak in Beijing shortly before the Symposiums originally scheduled date in 2003. The event achieved success due to the continuous support and kind understanding from all the delegates and the International Advisory Committee. During the last three years, I have communicated constantly with so many people who encouraged me by providing their suggestions and advice whenever I was in need, from which I feel a sense of community: the community being full of friendship and understanding. It is very heart-warming to have such an experience and I am very happy to have served as chairman of the Symposium for such a community. On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee I would like to thank all of you for the contributions and help that you have given us, without which we would not have had the Symposium.After the announcement of the ISSW24 was sent out, the response from the international shock wave research community was very encouraging. A total of 460 abstracts were submitted to the ISSW24. Each of the abstracts was evaluated by three members of the Scientific Review Committee and the decision on acceptance was made based on the reviewers reports. 195 oral papers, including nine plenary lectures, were accepted to be presented in three parallel sessions, and 135 poster papers in three dedicated poster sessions. Topics discussed in these papers cover all aspects of shock wave research. Among the topics, supersonic and hypersonic aerodynamics; shock wave reflection, diffraction and focusing; and detonation phenomena and pulse detonation engines were the most popular. Such topics not only include interesting fundamental shock wave physics, but also have important application backgrounds. The plenary lectures of the ISSW24 were selected based on the recommendations from all the IAC members, and review the state of the art of the recent shock wave research. It was also found that a good number of papers were the result of international research collaboration. These facts have demonstrated that the ISSW24 is really international and scientific, and that shock wave research becomes an important research field of continuously increasing interest.The final programme consisted of eight plenary lectures, 123 oral papers and 75 poster papers. The total number is much smaller than that originally accepted due to the change of date, and even though this was chosen carefully, it still overlapped with other conferences, for example, the 24th International Symposium on Rarefied Gas Dynamics from July 10-14, 2004. There were 233 participants registered at ISSW24 from 20 countries and regions: Australia 9, Canada 11, China 58, France 8, Germany 14, India 21, Iran 1, Israel 7, Japan 57, Korea 2, Morocco 1, Netherlands 2, Norway 2, Russia 8, Singapore 3, South Africa 4, Chinese Taiwan 2, Thailand 1, UK 7, and USA 15.The Proceedings is a valuable resource because it brings the recent information of shock wave research together in one place, acts as an introduction to many researchers and students, and serves as a tool for promotion of the ISSW. This is the reason why the Local Organizing Committee works hard to manage to publish it. Two hundred and six papers in total are published in the final proceedings and are organized in such a way that all the papers relating to similar topics are grouped together. Both oral and poster papers are considered to be equal without making any distinction between them. The Proceedings are more comprehensive than the CD-ROM that all the participants received during the Symposium, which only contains the full papers that were received before June 15, 2004, and was intended as a tool for the prompt exchange of research information.The ISSW24 was delayed one year because of the SARS outbreak in Beijing last year. In keeping with the pattern set at the ISSW over the last 40 years, the International Advisory Committee of the ISSW24 has decided that the ISSW25 will be held in the year 2005. The organizer of the ISSW25 has been chosen by voting of all the IAC members at the end of the year 2002 to gain more time for the next organizer. Prof. K. P. J. Reddy from Indian Institute of Science has been selected to be the Chairman of the ISSW25. I sincerely express my congratulations to him and wish ISSW25 a success.We were greatly assisted in planning the ISSW24 by continuous support from various sponsors: the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Nature Sciences Foundation of China, the Chinese Society of Shock Waves, the Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and the Chinese Society of Aerodynamics. On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee, I would like thank all members of the International Advisory Committee for their guidance and suggestions, and the Scientific Review Committee for their careful and efficient evaluation of the abstracts. My greatest thanks have to be to the delegates for providing high quality papers and actively participating in the Symposium. For editorial assistance, I wish to thank Dr. C. Wang for re-editing all the papers according to the required style of the ISSW24, and for compiling these proceedings. I must also thank Miss Q. Pu and X. Wang, my secretaries, for taking care of so many details in organizing the Symposium. Many thanks also go to the staff and students of the Key Laboratory of High Temperature Gas Dynamics, the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences for helping and supporting me over the past three years. Finally, I want to express my appreciation to Dr. Chris Caron from Springer-Verlag for his kind cooperation in publishing these proceedings.Received: 30 November 2004, Accepted: 30 November 2004, Published online: 24 February 2005/PUBLISHED]Zonglin Jiang: Chairman of the ISS24Correspondence to: Zonglin Jiang