This is the special issue of the papers presented at the 12th International Conference on Finite Element Methods in Fluids held at Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan on April 2–4,2003. This symposium was sponsored by the International Association for Computational Mechanics and Meijo University, organized mainly by Professor Mutsuto Kawahara of Chuo University and Professor Yoshihiro Taki of Meijo University. The presentations of this conference are divided into three categories: special paper, invited paper and contributed paper. All papers are original and are reviewed by highly qualified reviewers and accepted as valuable contribution.
The editor of this issue expresses his sincere thanks to the contributors and also to the reviewers of the papers.