A computational approach for modeling interactions between shocks waves, contact discontinuities and reactions zones with a high-order compact scheme is investigated. To prevent the formation of spurious oscillations around shocks, artificial nonlinear viscosity [A.W. Cook, W.H. Cabot, A high-wavenumber viscosity for high resolution numerical method, J. Comput. Phys. 195 (2004) 594–601] based on high-order derivative of the strain rate tensor is used. To capture temperature and species discontinuities a nonlinear diffusivity based on the entropy gradient is added. It is shown that the damping of ‘wiggles' is controlled by the model constants and is largely independent of the mesh size and the shock strength. The same holds for the numerical shock thickness and allows a determination of the L2 error. In the shock tube problem, with fluids of different initial entropy separated by the diaphragm, an artificial diffusivity is required to accurately capture the contact surface. Finally, the method is applied to a shock wave propagating into a medium with non-uniform density/ entropy and to a CJ detonation wave. Multi-dimensional formulation of the model is presented and is illustrated by a 2D oblique wave reflection from an inviscid wall, by a 2D supersonic blunt body flow and by a Mach reflection problem.