Well-posedness for two-dimensional steady supersonic Euler flows past a Lipschitz wedge

For a supersonic Euler flow past a straight-sided wedge whose vertex angle is less than the extreme angle, there exists a shock-front emanating from the wedge vertex, and the shock-front is usually strong especially when the vertex angle of the wedge is large. In this paper, we establish the L¹ well-posedness for two-dimensional steady supersonic Euler flows past a Lipschitz wedge whose boundary slope function has small total variation, when the total variation of the incoming flow is small. In this case, the Lipschitz wedge perturbs the flow, and the waves reflect after interacting with the strong shock-front and the wedge boundary. We first obtain the existence of solutions in BV when the incoming flow has small total variation by the wave front tracking method and then establish the L¹ stability of the solutions with respect to the incoming flows. In particular, we incorporate the nonlinear waves generated from the wedge boundary to develop a Lyapunov functional between two solutions containing strong shock-fronts, which is equivalent to the L¹ norm, and prove that the functional decreases in the flow direction. Then the L¹ stability is established, so is the uniqueness of the solutions by the wave front tracking method. Finally, the uniqueness of solutions in a broader class, the class of viscosity solutions, is also obtained.     

Stability of steady multi-wave configurations for the full Euler equations of compressible fluid flow

We are concerned with the stability of steady multi-wave configurations for the full Euler equations of compressible fluid flow. In this paper, we focus on the stability of steady four-wave configurations that are the solutions of the Riemann problem in the flow direction, consisting of two shocks, one vortex sheet, and one entropy wave, which is one of the core multi-wave configurations for the two-dimensional Euler equations. It is proved that such steady four-wave configurations in supersonic flow are stable in structure globally, even under the BV perturbation of the incoming flow in the flow direction. In order to achieve this, we first formulate the problem as the Cauchy problem (initial value problem) in the flow direction, and then develop a modified Glimm difference scheme and identify a Glimm-type functional to obtain the required BV estimates by tracing the interactions not only between the strong shocks and weak waves, but also between the strong vortex sheet/entropy wave and weak waves. The key feature of the Euler equations is that the reflection coefficient is always less than $1$, when a weak wave of different family interacts with the strong vortex sheet/entropy wave or the shock wave, which is crucial to guarantee that the Glimm functional is decreasing. Then these estimates are employed to establish the convergence of the approximate solutions to a global entropy solution, close to the background solution of steady four-wave configuration.     

On global transonic shocks for the steady supersonic Euler flows past sharp 2-D wedges

In this paper, under certain downstream pressure condition at infinity, we study the globally stable transonic shock problem for the perturbed steady supersonic Euler flow past an infinitely long 2-D wedge with a sharp angle. As described in the book of Courant and Friedrichs [R. Courant, K.O. Friedrichs, Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves, Interscience, New York, 1948] (pages 317-318): when a supersonic flow hits a sharp wedge, it follows from the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions and the entropy condition that there will appear a weak shock or a strong shock attached at the edge of the sharp wedge in terms of the different pressure states in the downstream region, which correspond to the supersonic shock and the transonic shock respectively. It has frequently been stated that the strong shock is unstable and that, therefore, only the weak shock could occur. However, a convincing proof of this instability has apparently never been given. The aim of this paper is to understand this open problem. More concretely, we will establish the global existence and stability of a transonic shock solution for 2-D full Euler system when the downstream pressure at infinity is suitably given. Meanwhile, the asymptotic state of the downstream subsonic solution is determined.     

Global transonic conic shock wave for the symmetrically perturbed supersonic flow past a cone

In this paper, we are concerned with the global existence and stability of a steady transonic conic shock wave for the symmetrically perturbed supersonic flow past an infinitely long conic body. The flow is assumed to be polytropic, isentropic and described by a steady potential equation. Theoretically, as indicated in [R. Courant, K.O. Friedrichs, Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves, Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1948], it follows from the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions and the entropy condition that there will appear a weak shock or a strong shock attached at the vertex of the sharp cone in terms of the different pressure states at infinity behind the shock surface, which correspond to the supersonic shock and the transonic shock respectively. In the references [Shuxing Chen, Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Global shock wave for the supersonic flow past a perturbed cone, Comm. Math. Phys. 228 (2002) 47-84; Dacheng Cui, Huicheng Yin, Global conic shock wave for the steady supersonic flow past a cone: Polytropic case, preprint, 2006; Dacheng Cui, Huicheng Yin, Global conic shock wave for the steady supersonic flow past a cone: Isothermal case, Pacific J. Math. 233 (2) (2007) 257-289] and [Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Global multidimensional shock wave for the steady supersonic flow past a three-dimensional curved cone, Anal. Appl. 4 (2) (2006) 101-132], the authors have established the global existence and stability of a supersonic shock for the perturbed hypersonic incoming flow past a sharp cone when the pressure at infinity is appropriately smaller than that of the incoming flow. At present, for the supersonic symmetric incoming flow, we will study the global transonic shock problem when the pressure at infinity is appropriately large.     

Global existence of shock for the supersonic Euler flow past a curved 2-D wedge

In this paper, we study the global existence of the supersonic shock for the steady supersonic Euler flow past a curved 2-D wedge. By using the method of characteristic, we show that the shock exists globally and the flow between the shock and wedge is continuous provided the wedge is a small perturbation of a straight wedge under a weighted global Sobolev norm and the vertex angle is less than the extreme angle.     

Analysis on linear stability of oblique shock waves in steady supersonic flow

An attached oblique shock wave is generated when a sharp solid projectile flies supersonically in the air. We study the linear stability of oblique shock waves in steady supersonic flow under three dimensional perturbation in the incoming flow. Euler system of equations for isentropic gas model is used. The linear stability is established for shock front with supersonic downstream flow, in addition to the usual entropy condition.     

Well-posedness of transonic characteristic discontinuities in two-dimensional steady compressible Euler flows

In our previous work, we have established the existence of transonic characteristic discontinuities separating supersonic flows from a static gas in two-dimensional steady compressible Euler flows under a perturbation with small total variation of the incoming supersonic flow over a solid right wedge. It is a free boundary problem in Eulerian coordinates and, across the free boundary (characteristic discontinuity), the Euler equations are of elliptic–hyperbolic composite-mixed type. In this paper, we further prove that such a transonic characteristic discontinuity solution is unique and L ¹–stable with respect to the small perturbation of the incoming supersonic flow in Lagrangian coordinates.     

Global Conic Shock Wave for the Steady Supersonic Flow Past a Large Curved Cone at Infinity

In this paper, we establish the global existence and stability of a steady symmetric shock wave for the constant supersonic flow past an infinitely long and large curved conic body. The flow is assumed to be polytropic, isentropic and described by a steady potential equation. Through looking for the suitable “dissipative” boundary conditions on the shock and the conic surface together with the special form of shock equation, we show that the conic shock attached at the vertex of the cone exists globally in the whole space when the speed of the supersonic incoming flow is appropriately large.     

A Variational Approach Via Bipotentials for a Class of Frictional Contact Problems

In the reference (Cui and Yin, Pacific J. Math. 233:257–289, 2007), under the assumptions that the supersonic incoming flow is isothermal and symmetrically perturbed with respect to a uniform supersonic constant state, the authors have shown the global existence and stability of a symmetric supersonic conic shock for such a supersonic flow past a circular cone. In this paper, we will remove all the symmetric assumptions in the previous paper and study the global existence problem on a really multidimensional shock wave. More concretely, we establish the global existence and stability of a three-dimensional supersonic conic shock wave for a perturbed steady supersonic isothermal flow past an infinitely long conic body.     

Global supersonic conic shock wave for the steady supersonic flow past a cone: Polytropic gas

In this paper, we establish the global existence and stability of a steady conic shock wave for the symmetrically perturbed supersonic flow past an infinitely long conic body as long as the vertex angle is less than a critical value. The flow is assumed to be polytropic, isentropic and described by a steady potential equation. Based on the delicate asymptotic expansion of the background solution, one can verify that the boundary conditions on the shock and the conic surface satisfy the “dissipative” property. From this property, by use of the reflected characteristics method and the special form of the shock equation, we show that the conic shock attached at the vertex of the cone exists globally in the whole space when the speed of the supersonic coming flow is appropriately large. On the other hand, we remove the smallness restriction on the sharp vertex angle in order to establish the global existence of a shock or a global weak solution, moreover, our proof approach is different from that in [Shuxing Chen, Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Global shock wave for the supersonic flow past a perturbed cone, Comm. Math. Phys. 228 (2002) 47-84] and [Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Global multidimensional shock wave for the steady supersonic flow past a three-dimensional curved cone, Anal. Appl. 4 (2) (2006) 101-132].     

Transonic nozzle flows and free boundary problems for the full Euler equations

We establish the existence and uniqueness of transonic flows with a transonic shock through a two-dimensional nozzle of slowly varying cross-sections. The transonic flow is governed by the steady, full Euler equations. Given an incoming smooth flow that is close to a constant supersonic state (i.e., smooth Cauchy data) at the entrance and the subsonic condition with nearly horizontal velocity at the exit of the nozzle, we prove that there exists a transonic flow whose downstream smooth subsonic region is separated by a smooth transonic shock from the upstream supersonic flow. This problem is approached by a one-phase free boundary problem in which the transonic shock is formulated as a free boundary. The full Euler equations are decomposed into an elliptic equation and a system of transport equations for the free boundary problem. An iteration scheme is developed and its fixed point is shown to exist, which is a solution of the free boundary problem, by combining some delicate estimates for the elliptic equation and the system of transport equations with the Schauder fixed point argument. The uniqueness of transonic nozzle flows is also established by employing the coordinate transformation of Euler-Lagrange type and detailed estimates of the solutions.     

Steady supersonic flow past an almost straight wedge with large vertex angle

This paper studies the problem on the steady supersonic flow at the constant speed past an almost straight wedge with a piecewise smooth boundary. It is well known that if each vertex angle of the straight wedge is less than an extreme angle determined by the shock polar, the shock wave is attached to the tip of the wedge and constant states on both side of the shock are supersonic. This paper is devoted to generalizing this result. Under the hypotheses that each vertex angle is less than the extreme angle and the total variation of tangent angle along each edge is sufficiently small, a sequence of approximate solutions constructed by a modified Glimm scheme is proved to be convergent to a global weak solution of the steady problem. A sequence of the corresponding approximate leading shock fronts issuing from the tip is shown to be convergent to the leading shock front of the obtained solution. The regularity of the leading shock front is established and the asymptotic behaviour of the obtained solution at infinity is also studied.     

Stability of rarefaction wave to the 1-D piston problem for exothermically reacting Euler equations

This paper is to devoted to the stability of the rarefaction wave for one dimensional piston problem of the exothermically reacting Euler equations. When the total variation of the initial data and the perturbation of the piston velocity are sufficiently small, we employ fractional wave front tracking scheme to establish the global existence and study the asymptotic behavior of entropy solutions as \(t\rightarrow +\infty \).     

Stability of transonic shock for supersonic flow past a wedge

When steady supersonic flow hits a slim wedge, there may appear an oblique transonic shock attached to the vertex of the wedge, if the downstream pressure is rather large. This paper studies stability in certain weighted partial Hölder spaces of the oblique transonic shock attached to the vertex of a wedge, which is against steady supersonic flows, under perturbations of the upstream flow and the profile of the wedge. We show that under reasonable conditions on the upcoming supersonic flow and the slope of the wedge, such transonic shocks are structural stable. Mathematically, we solve an elliptic–hyperbolic mixed type in an unbounded domain, and the flow field is proved to be C¹. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The flow of a supersonic ideal gas with “weak” and “strong” shocks over a wedge

The problem of the flow of a uniform supersonic ideal (inviscid and non-heat-conducting) gas over a wedge is considered. If the turning angle of the flow, which is equal to the angle of inclination of the generatrix of the wedge, is less than the maximum value, the problem has two solutions. In the solution with an oblique low-intensity (“weak”) shock, the uniform flow between the shock and the wedge is almost always supersonic. One exception is a small vicinity of the maximum turning angle. For an ideal gas this vicinity does not exceed a fraction of a degree at all Mach numbers. Behind a high-intensity (“strong”) shock, the flow of an ideal gas is always subsonic. “Weak” shocks are observed in all experiments with finite wedges. Some researchers attribute this preference to the “downstream” boundary conditions (“on the right at infinity” for a flow incident on the wedge from the left), and others attribute it to the instability (“Lyapunov” instability) of a flow with a strong shock when it flows over the wedge and to the stability of flow with a weak shock. The results presented below from calculations of the flows that occur for finite wedges within the two-dimensional unsteady Euler equations, when the parameters behind the strong shock are specified on the right-hand boundary, i.e., on the arc of a circle between the wedge and the shock, demonstrate the correctness of the conclusion of the first group of researchers and the incorrectness of the conclusion of the other group. In these calculations, after both small and fairly large perturbations, the flows investigated (which are, in fact, Lyapunov unstable!) return to the solution with a strong shock. In addition, the problem of steady flow over a wedge was regarded as the limit of the two-dimensional non-steady problems at infinite time. Simplification of one of them leads to the problem of the submerged over-expanded supersonic steady outflow. In the ideal gas model this problem is equivalent to flow over a wedge with both weak and strong shocks. All the solutions considered are stable.     

Multidimensional transonic shocks and free boundary problems for nonlinear equations of mixed type

We establish the existence and stability of multidimensional transonic shocks for the Euler equations for steady potential compressible fluids. The Euler equations, consisting of the conservation law of mass and the Bernoulli law for the velocity, can be written as a second-order, nonlinear equation of mixed elliptic-hyperbolic type for the velocity potential. The transonic shock problem can be formulated into the following free boundary problem: The free boundary is the location of the transonic shock which divides the two regions of smooth flow, and the equation is hyperbolic in the upstream region where the smooth perturbed flow is supersonic. We develop a nonlinear approach to deal with such a free boundary problem in order to solve the transonic shock problem. Our results indicate that there exists a unique solution of the free boundary problem such that the equation is always elliptic in the downstream region and the free boundary is smooth, provided that the hyperbolic phase is close to a uniform flow. We prove that the free boundary is stable under the steady perturbation of the hyperbolic phase. We also establish the existence and stability of multidimensional transonic shocks near spherical or circular transonic shocks.

     

Global Solution of an Initial-Value Problem for Two-Dimensional Compressible Euler Equations

This paper is concerned with the existence of global continuous solutions of the expansion of a wedge of gas into a vacuum for compressible Euler equations. By hodograph transformation, we first prove that the flow is governed by a partial differential equation of second order, which is further reduced to a system of two nonhomogeneous linearly degenerate equations in the phase space under an irrotationality condition. Then this conclusion is applied to solving the problem that a wedge of gas expands into a vacuum, which is actually a Goursat-type problem for these two equations in the supersonic domain.     

Transonic shocks in 3-D compressible flow passing a duct with a general section for Euler systems

This paper is devoted to the study of a transonic shock in three-dimensional steady compressible flow passing a duct with a general section. The flow is described by the steady full Euler system, which is purely hyperbolic in the supersonic region and is of elliptic-hyperbolic type in the subsonic region. The upstream flow at the entrance of the duct is a uniform supersonic one adding a three-dimensional perturbation, while the pressure of the downstream flow at the exit of the duct is assigned apart from a constant difference. The problem to determine the transonic shock and the flow behind the shock is reduced to a free boundary value problem of an elliptic-hyperbolic system. The new ingredients of our paper contain the decomposition of the elliptic-hyperbolic system, the determination of the shock front by a pair of partial differential equations coupled with the three-dimensional Euler system, and the regularity analysis of solutions to the boundary value problems introduced in our discussion.

     

Nonexistence of a Globally Stable Supersonic Conic Shock Wave for the Steady Supersonic Isothermal Euler Flow

In this paper, for the full Euler system of the isothermal gas, we show that a globally stable supersonic conic shock wave solution does not exist when a uniform supersonic incoming flow hits an infinitely long and curved sharp conic body.     

Global Existence of Supersonic Flow Past a Curved Convex Wedge

In this paper we discuss the supersonic flow past a curved convex wedge. Our conclusion is that if the vertex angle of the wedge is less than a critical angle, the shock attached the head of the wedge is weak, and if the wedge is formed by a smooth convex curve, monotonically increasing, then the global solution of such a boundary value problem exists.