The present work is concerned to the study and implementation of self-adaptive grids to tluid mechanics and heat transfer problems. Initially, a ID method is applied to simple problems described by the generalized Burger-s equation, After that, a 2-D method is applied to the wall driven Cavity with Reynolds numbers equal to 100, 500 and 1000 and to the natural convection problem inside cavltles with Rayleigh numbers equal to 10 to the third power, 10 to the fourth power, 10 to the fifth power and 10 to the sixth power. A third method, based on a system of elliptic equations is proposed and applied to this natural convection problem, for error assessmet. For each application, one seeks to define criteria such as: a) most suitable dependent variable to drive the adaptive technique; b) intensity of the adaptive technique and c) need for the use of the technique at all. From the 1-D problems, it may be concluded that in presence of single regions of strong gradients, the technidne works line, specially shenever a source term is present. From the wall driven cavity problem, it appears that the stream function is most suitable to be the driving force for the adaptation. For instance, for Reynolds number on the order of 1000, the used method works well. The natural convectlon problem indicates best results for high Rayleigh numbers, say 10 to the sixth power, and with the use of the temperature gradient that is straight related to the source term, that is, buoyancy in the case. In the present work, geometric characteristics such as ortogonality and smooth are considered. Among the three methods, studied, it seems that the elliptic one, proposed here, is able to concentrate grid points Whenever needed, without severe penalization to those characteristics.