  The aim of the present paper is to provide a comparison between several
finite-volume methods of different numerical accuracy: second-order Godunov
method with PPM interpolation and high-order finite-volume WENO method. The
results show that while on a smooth problem the high-order method perform
better than the second-order one, when the solution contains a shock all the
methods collapse to first-order accuracy. In the context of the decay of
compressible homogeneous isotropic turbulence with shocklets, the actual
overall order of accuracy of the methods reduces to second-order, despite the
use of fifth-order reconstruction schemes at cell interfaces. Most important,
results in terms of turbulent spectra are similar regardless of the numerical
methods employed, except that the PPM method fails to provide an accurate
representation in the high-frequency range of the spectra. It is found that
this specific issue comes from the slope-limiting procedure and a novel hybrid
PPM/WENO method is developed that has the ability to capture the turbulent
spectra with the accuracy of a high-order method, but at the cost of the
second-order Godunov method. Overall, it is shown that virtually the same
physical solution can be obtained much faster by refining a simulation with the
second-order method and carefully chosen numerical procedures, rather than
running a coarse high-order simulation. Our results demonstrate the importance
of evaluating the accuracy of a numerical method in terms of its actual
spectral dissipation and dispersion properties on mixed smooth/shock cases,
rather than by the theoretical formal order of convergence rate.
