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We construct a local Lax-Friedrichs type positivity-preserving flux for compressible Navier-Stokes equations, which can be easily extended to high dimensions for generic forms of equations of state, shear stress tensor and heat flux. With this positivity-preserving flux, any finite volume type schemes including discontinuous Galerkin (DG) schemes with strong stability preserving Runge-Kutta time discretizations satisfy a weak positivity property. With a simple and effi- cient positivity-preserving limiter, high order explicit Runge-Kutta DG schemes are rendered preserving the positivity of density and internal energy without los- ing local conservation or high order accuracy. Numerical tests suggest that the positivity-preserving flux and the positivity-preserving limiter do not induce excessive artificial viscosity, and the high order positivity-preserving DG schemes without other limiters can produce satisfying non-oscillatory solutions when the nonlinear diffusion in compressible Navier-Stokes equations is accurately resolved.

We show that the classical fourth order accurate compact finite difference scheme with high order strong stability preserving time discretizations for convection diffusion problems satisfies a weak monotonicity property, which implies that a simple limiter can enforce the bound- preserving property without losing conservation and high order accuracy. Higher order accurate compact finite difference schemes satisfying the weak monotonicity will also be discussed.