Navier–Stokes Equations with Navier Boundary Conditions for an Oceanic Model

We consider the Navier–Stokes equations in a thin domain of which the top and bottom surfaces are not flat. The velocity fields are subject to the Navier conditions on those boundaries and the periodicity condition on the other sides of the domain. This toy model arises from studies of climate and oceanic flows. We show that the strong solutions exist for all time provided the initial data belong to a “large” set in the Sobolev space H ¹. Furthermore we show, for both the autonomous and the nonautonomous problems, the existence of a global attractor for the class of all strong solutions. This attractor is proved to be also the global attractor for the Leray–Hopf weak solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations. One issue that arises here is a nontrivial contribution due to the boundary terms. We show how the boundary conditions imposed on the velocity fields affect the estimates of the Stokes operator and the (nonlinear) inertial term in the Navier–Stokes equations. This results in a new estimate of the trilinear term, which in turn permits a short and simple proof of the existence of strong solutions for all time.     

Global Well-Posedness for the Generalized Large-Scale Semigeostrophic Equations

We prove existence and uniqueness of global classical solutions to the generalized large-scale semigeostrophic equations with periodic boundary conditions. This family of Hamiltonian balance models for rapidly rotating shallow water includes the L ₁ model derived by R. Salmon in 1985 and its 2006 generalization by the second author. The results are, under the physical restriction that the initial potential vorticity is positive, as strong as those available for the Euler equations of ideal fluid flow in two dimensions. Moreover, we identify a special case in which the velocity field is two derivatives smoother in Sobolev space as compared to the general case. Our results are based on careful estimates which show that, although the potential vorticity inversion is nonlinear, bounds on the potential vorticity inversion operator remain linear in derivatives of the potential vorticity. This permits the adaptation of an argument based on elliptic L ^p theory, proposed by Yudovich in 1963 for proving existence and uniqueness of weak solutions for the two-dimensional Euler equations, to our particular nonlinear situation.     

Sobolev Periodic Solutions of Nonlinear Wave Equations in Higher Spatial Dimensions

We prove the existence of Cantor families of periodic solutions for nonlinear wave equations in higher spatial dimensions with periodic boundary conditions. We study both forced and autonomous PDEs. In the latter case our theorems generalize previous results of Bourgain to more general nonlinearities of class C ^k and assuming weaker non-resonance conditions. Our solutions have Sobolev regularity both in time and space. The proofs are based on a differentiable Nash–Moser iteration scheme, where it is sufficient to get estimates of interpolation-type for the inverse linearized operators. Our approach works also in presence of very large “clusters of small divisors”.     

Liquid Crystal Flows in Two Dimensions

This paper is concerned with a simplified hydrodynamic equation, proposed by Ericksen and Leslie, modeling the flow of nematic liquid crystals. In dimension two, we establish both interior and boundary regularity theorems for such a flow under smallness conditions. As a consequence, we establish the existence of global (in time) weak solutions on a bounded smooth domain in \mathbbR²{\mathbb{R}^2} which are smooth everywhere with possible exceptions of finitely many singular times.     

Existence and Regularity of Very Weak Solutions of the Stationary Navier–Stokes Equations

We consider the stationary Navier–Stokes equations in a bounded domain Ω in R ⁿ with smooth connected boundary, where n = 2, 3 or 4. In case that n = 3 or 4, existence of very weak solutions in L ⁿ (Ω) is proved for the data belonging to some Sobolev spaces of negative order. Moreover we obtain complete L ^q -regularity results on very weak solutions in L ⁿ (Ω). If n = 2, then similar results are also proved for very weak solutions in with any q ₀ > 2. We impose neither smallness conditions on the external force nor boundary data for our existence and regularity results.     

Regularity Issues in the Problem of Fluid Structure Interaction

We investigate the evolution of rigid bodies in a viscous incompressible fluid. The flow is governed by the 2D Navier–Stokes equations, set in a bounded domain with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The boundaries of the solids and the domain have Hölder regularity C ^1,α , 0 < α ≦ 1. First, we show the existence and uniqueness of strong solutions up to the collision. A key ingredient is a BMO bound on the velocity gradient, which substitutes to the standard H ² estimate for smoother domains. Then, we study the asymptotic behaviour of one C ^1,α body falling over a flat surface. We show that a collision is possible in finite time if and only if α < 1/2.     

On a Diffuse Interface Model for Two-Phase Flows of Viscous, Incompressible Fluids with Matched Densities

We study a diffuse interface model for the flow of two viscous incompressible Newtonian fluids of the same density in a bounded domain. The fluids are assumed to be macroscopically immiscible, but a partial mixing in a small interfacial region is assumed in the model. Moreover, diffusion of both components is taken into account. This leads to a coupled Navier–Stokes/Cahn–Hilliard system, which is capable of describing the evolution of droplet formation and collision during the flow. We prove the existence of weak solutions of the non-stationary system in two and three space dimensions for a class of physical relevant and singular free energy densities, which ensures—in contrast to the usual case of a smooth free energy density—that the concentration stays in the physical reasonable interval. Furthermore, we find that unique “strong” solutions exist in two dimensions globally in time and in three dimensions locally in time. Moreover, we show that for any weak solution the concentration is uniformly continuous in space and time. Because of this regularity, we are able to show that any weak solution becomes regular for large times and converges as t → ∞ to a solution of the stationary system. These results are based on a regularity theory for the Cahn–Hilliard equation with convection and singular potentials in spaces of fractional time regularity as well as on maximal regularity of a Stokes system with variable viscosity and forces in L ²(0, ∞; H ^s (Ω)), ${s \in [0, \frac12)}$ , which are new themselves.     

A formal finite element approach for open boundaries in transport and diffusion ground-water problems

In the application of the finite element method to diffusion and convection-dispersion equations over a ground-water domain, the Galerkin technique was used to incorporate Neumann (or second-type) and Cauchy (or third-type) boundary conditions. While mass movement through open boundaries is a priori unknown, these boundaries are usually treated as a zero Neumann condition at some far distance from the domain of interest. Nevertheless, cheaper and better solutions can be obtained if these unknown conditions are adequately incorporated in the weak formulation and in the transient solution schemes (open boundary condition). Theoretical and numerical proofs are given of the equivalences between this approach and a ‘well-posed’ problem in a semi-infinite domain with a zero Neumann condition at a boundary placed at infinity. Transport and diffusion equations were applied in one dimension to show the numerical performances and limitations of this procedure for some linear and non-linear problems. No a priori limitations are foreseen in order to find similar solutions in two or three dimensions. Thus the spatial discretization in the proximity of open boundaries could be drastically reduced to the domain of interest.     

Existence of the vortex solutions of some semilinear elliptic equations

The purpose is to extend the existence result of vortex solutions to semilinear elliptic equations for a large class of nonlinearities. M. I. Weinstein used variational techniques to show the existence of nodal solutions for the specific nonlinear term f(¦¦)=(1–¦¦²). An ordinary differential equation phase space setting is used to show the unique transverse intersection of unstable and stable manifolds which contain the solutions satisfying the necessary boundary conditions under certain assumptions on the nonlinearity.     

Attractor for a Degenerate Nonlinear Diffusion Problem with Nonlinear Boundary Condition

In this paper we prove the existence of a compact attractor in L () for a degenerate nonlinear diffusion problem with nonlinear flux on the boundary. In order to formulate the equation as a dynamical system, some existence and uniqueness results for weak solutions are proved.     

Navier–Stokes Equations with Shear-Thickening Viscosity. Regularity up to the Boundary

In this article we prove some sharp regularity results for the stationary and the evolution Navier–Stokes equations with shear dependent viscosity, see (1.1), under the no-slip boundary condition(1.4). We are interested in regularity results for the second order derivatives of the velocity and for the first order derivatives of the pressure up to the boundary, in dimension n ≥ 3. In reference [4] we consider the stationary problem in the half space \mathbbR₊ⁿ{\mathbb{R}}_+^n under slip and no-slip boundary conditions. Here, by working in a simpler context, we concentrate on the basic ideas of proofs. We consider a cubic domain and impose our boundary condition (1.4) only on two opposite faces. On the other faces we assume periodicity, as a device to avoid unessential technical difficulties. This choice is made so that we work in a bounded domain Ω and, at the same time, with a flat boundary. In the last section we provide the extension of the results from the stationary to the evolution problem.     

Concerning the W k,p -Inviscid Limit for 3-D Flows Under a Slip Boundary Condition

We consider the 3-D evolutionary Navier–Stokes equations with a Navier slip-type boundary condition, see (1.2), and study the problem of the strong convergence of the solutions, as the viscosity goes to zero, to the solution of the Euler equations under the zero-flux boundary condition. We prove here, in the flat boundary case, convergence in Sobolev spaces W ^k, p (Ω), for arbitrarily large k and p (for previous results see Xiao and Xin in Comm Pure Appl Math 60:1027–1055, 2007 and Beir?o da Veiga and Crispo in J Math Fluid Mech, 2009, doi:). However this problem is still open for non-flat, arbitrarily smooth, boundaries. The main obstacle consists in some boundary integrals, which vanish on flat portions of the boundary. However, if we drop the convective terms (Stokes problem), the inviscid, strong limit result holds, as shown below. The cause of this different behavior is quite subtle. As a by-product, we set up a very elementary approach to the regularity theory, in L ^p -spaces, for solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations under slip type boundary conditions.     

Stationary Flows of Shear Thickening Fluids in 2D

We investigate the steady flow of a shear thickening generalized Newtonian fluid under homogeneous boundary conditions on a domain in \mathbbR²{\mathbb{R}^{2}}. We assume that the stress tensor is generated by a potential of the form H = h (|e(u)|){H = h (|\varepsilon (u)|)}, e(u){\varepsilon (u)} denoting the symmetric part of the velocity gradient. We prove the existence of strong solutions for a large class of functions h having the property that h′ (t)/t increases (shear thickening case).     

Reaction–Diffusion Equations with Nonlinear Boundary Delay

We consider dissipative scalar reaction–diffusion equations that include the ones of the form u _t–u=f(u(t)), subjected to boundary conditions that include small delays, that is, we consider boundary conditions of the form u/n _a=g(u(t), u(t–r)). We show the global existence and uniqueness of solutions in a convenient fractional power space, and furthermore, we show that, for r sufficiently small, all bounded solutions are asymptotic to the set of equilibria as t tends to infinity.     

Decay Rates for the Three‐Dimensional Linear System of Thermoelasticity

. We consider the two and three‐dimensional system of linear thermoelasticity in a bounded smooth domain with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We analyze whether the energy of solutions decays exponentially uniformly to zero as . First of all, by a decoupling method, we reduce the problem to an observability inequality for the Lamé system in linear elasticity and more precisely to whether the total energy of the solutions can be estimated in terms of the energy concentrated on its longitudinal component. We show that when the domain is convex, the decay rate is never uniform. In fact, the lack of uniform decay holds in a more general class of domains in which there exist rays of geometric optics of arbitrarily large length that are always reflected perpendicularly or almost tangentially on the boundary. We also show that, in three space dimensions, the lack of uniform decay may also be due to a critical polarization of the energy on the transversal component of the displacement. In two space dimensions we prove a sufficient (and almost necessary) condition for the uniform decay to hold in terms of the propagation of the transversal characteristic rays, under the further assumption that the boundary of the domain does not have contacts of infinite order with its tangents. We also give an example, due to D. Hulin, in which these geometric properties hold. In three space dimensions we indicate (without proof) how a careful analysis of the polarization of singularities may lead to sharp sufficient conditions for the uniform decay to hold. In two space dimensions we prove that smooth solutions decay polynomially in the energy space to a finite‐dimensional subspace of solutions except when the domain is a ball or an annulus. Finally we discuss some closely related controllability and spectral issues. (Accepted May 14, 1998)     

A Nodal Method for Phase Change Moving Boundary Problems

A semi-analytic numerical scheme has been developed to solve the one-dimensional, moving boundary phase change problem with time-dependent boundary conditions. Locally analytic, approximate solutions are developed for the position of the moving boundary, and for temperature distribution. Set of discrete equations are obtained by applying these solutions over space-time nodes, and by imposing continuity of temperature and heat flux. Application of this so-called nodal integral approach to the nonlinear Stefan problem shows that the scheme is O(Δx ²), and that it predicts the position of the moving boundary and the temperature distribution within the domain very accurately. For example, with as little as two nodes in the spatial domain, the location of the moving boundary for the case of an exponentially increasing surface temperature on the boundary, after one dimensionless time unit, is found with an error of less than 1%. In addition to large size nodes in space, this scheme also allows the use of very large size time steps. Comparison of numerical results with reference solutions is presented.     

A non‐conforming least‐squares finite element method for incompressible fluid flow problems

In this paper, we develop least‐squares finite element methods (LSFEMs) for incompressible fluid flows with improved mass conservation. Specifically, we formulate a new locally conservative LSFEM for the velocity–vorticity–pressure Stokes system, which uses a piecewise divergence‐free basis for the velocity and standard C⁰ elements for the vorticity and the pressure. The new method, which we term dV‐VP improves upon our previous discontinuous stream‐function formulation in several ways. The use of a velocity basis, instead of a stream function, simplifies the imposition and implementation of the velocity boundary condition, and eliminates second‐order terms from the least‐squares functional. Moreover, the size of the resulting discrete problem is reduced because the piecewise solenoidal velocity element is approximately one‐half of the dimension of a stream‐function element of equal accuracy. In two dimensions, the discontinuous stream‐function LSFEM [1] motivates modification of our functional, which further improves the conservation of mass. We briefly discuss the extension of this modification to three dimensions. Computational studies demonstrate that the new formulation achieves optimal convergence rates and yields high conservation of mass. We also propose a simple diagonal preconditioner for the dV‐VP formulation, which significantly reduces the condition number of the LSFEM problem. Published 2012. This article is a US Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.     

Asymptotic Behavior of Global Classical Solutions to the Mixed Initial-Boundary Value Problem for Quasilinear Hyperbolic Systems with Small BV Data

In this paper, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of global classical solutions to the mixed initial-boundary value problem with small BV data for linearly degenerate quasilinear hyperbolic systems with general nonlinear boundary conditions in the half space {(t,x)|t≥0,x≥0}. Based on the existence result on the global classical solution, we prove that when t tends to the infinity, the solution approaches a combination of C ¹ traveling wave solutions, provided that the C ¹ norm of the initial and boundary data is bounded and the BV norm of the initial and boundary data is sufficiently small. Applications to quasilinear hyperbolic systems arising in physics and mechanics, particularly to the system describing the motion of the relativistic string in the Minkowski space-time R ¹⁺ⁿ , are also given.     

The influence of normal flow boundary conditions on spurious modes in finite element solutions to the shallow water equations

Finite element solutions of the primitive equation (PE) form of the shallow water equations are notorious for the severe spurious 2Δx modes which appear. Wave equation (WE) solutions do not exhibit these numerical modes. In this paper we show that the severe spurious modes in PE solutions are strongly influenced by essential normal flow boundary conditions in the coupled continuity-momentum system of equations. This is demonstrated through numerical examples that avoid the use of essential normal flow boundary conditions either by specifying elevation values over the entire boundary or by implementing natural flow boundary conditions in the weak weighted residual form of the continuity equation. Results from a series of convergence tests show that PE solutions are of nearly the same quality as WE solutions when spurious modes are suppressed by alternative specification of the boundary conditions. Network intercomparisons indicate that varying nodal support does not excite spurious modes in a solution, although it does enhance the spurious modes introduced when an essential normal flow boundary condition is used. Dispersion analysis of discrete equations for interior and boundary nodes offers an explanation of the observed solution behaviour. For certain PE algorithms a mixed situation can arise where the boundary nodes exhibit a monotonic (noise-free) dispersion relationship and the interior nodes exhibit a folded (noisy) dispersion relationship. We have found that the mixed situation occurs when all boundary nodes are specified elevation nodes (which are enforced as essential conditions in the continuity equation) or when specified flow boundary nodes are treated as natural boundary conditions in the continuity equation. In either case the effect is to generate a solution that is essentially free of noise. Apparently, the monotonic dispersion behaviour at the boundaries suppresses the otherwise noisy behaviour caused by the folded dispersion relation on the interior.     

Efficient quadrature for a boundary element method to compute three-dimensional Stokes flow

A collocation-type boundary element method based on bilinear B-splines is used for the numerical solution of the Stokes Dirichlet problem in bounded domains D ? R³. The computation of the influence matrix requires the numerical evaluation of weakly singular integrals on the domain boundary if the usual double-layer potential ansatz is chosen. Here mostly standard methods with disjoint grids for collocation and integration are used. We develop a special integration scheme based on triangular co-ordinates near the singularity and show its efficiency compared with the method mentioned above.