Journal of Statistical Physics, Vol. 81, Nos. 1/2, 1995. p. 147-164.
Starting from the gas-kinetic model, a new class of relaxation schemes for the Euler equations is presented. In contrast to the Riemann solver, these schemes provide a multidimensional dynamical gas evolution model, which combines both Lax-Wendroff and kinetic flux vector splitting schemes, and their coupling is based on the fact that a nonequilibrium state will evolve into an equilibrium state along with the increase of entropy. The numerical fluxes are constructed without getting into the details of the particle collisions. The results for many well-defined test cases are presented to indicate the robustness and accuracy of the current scheme.