Stability and Existence of Multidimensional Subsonic Phase Transitions

The purpose of this paper is to prove the uniform stability of multidimensional subsonic phase transitions satisfying the viscosity-capillarity criterion in a van der Waals fluid, and further to establish the local existence of phase transition solutions.     

Stability of non-isothermal phase transitions in a steady van der Waals flow

This paper is concerned with the multidimensional stability of non-isothermal subsonic phase transitions in a steady supersonic flow of van der Waals type. For the sake of seeking physical admissible planar waves, the viscosity–capillarity criterion (Slemrod in Arch Ration Mech Anal 81(4):301–315, 1983) is chosen to be the admissible criterion. By showing the Lopatinski determinant being non-zero, we prove that subsonic phase transitions are uniformly stable in the sense of Majda (Mem Am Math Soc 41(275):1–95, 1983) under both one-dimensional and multidimensional perturbations.     

Stability of Multidimensional Phase Transitions

In this paper, the author studies the multidimensional stability of subsonic phase transitions in a steady supersonic flow of van der Waals type. The viscosity capillarity criterion （in ＂Arch. Rat. Mech. Anal., 81（4）, 1983, 301-315＂） is used to seek physical admissible planar waves. By showing the Lopatinski determinant being non-zero, it is proved that subsonic phase transitions are uniformly stable in the sense of Majda （in ＂Mem. Amer. Math. Soc., 41（275）, 1983, 1-95＂） under both one dimensional and multidimensional perturbations.     

Reflection of Shock Fronts in a van der Waals Fluid

In this paper, the reflection phenomenon of a vapor shock front （both sides of the front are in the vapor phase） in a van der Waals fluid is considered. Both the 1-dimensional case and the multidimensional case are investigated. The authors find that under certain conditions, the reflected wave can be a single shock, or a single subsonic phase boundary, or one weak shock together with one subsonic phase boundary, which depends on the strength of the incident shock. This is different from the known result for the reflection of shock fronts in a gas dynamical system due to Chen in 1989.     

Existence of multidimensional shock waves and phase boundaries

In this paper, a kind of Riemann problem for the Euler equations in a van der Waals fluid is considered. We constructed the weak solution in multidimensional space which contains one shock front and one subsonic phase boundary. We mainly follow the arguments of Majda's [A. Majda, The stability of multi-dimensional shock fronts, Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. 275 (1983) 1-95; A. Majda, The existence of multi-dimensional shock fronts, Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. 281 (1983) 1-93] and Métivier's [G. Métivier, Interaction de deux chocs pour un système de deux lois de conservation, en dimension deux d'espace, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 296 (1986) 431-479] work. The linear stability results are based on Majda's [A. Majda, The stability of multi-dimensional shock fronts, Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. 275 (1983) 1-95] work for the single shock front and Wang and Xin's [Y.-G. Wang, Z. Xin, Stability and existence of multidimensional subsonic phase transitions, Acta Math. Appl. Sin. 19 (2003) 529-558] work for the single phase boundary. The initial boundary value problem concerned in this paper is different from the boundary value problem for double shock fronts concerned in [G. Métivier, Interaction de deux chocs pour un système de deux lois de conservation, en dimension deux d'espace, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 296 (1986) 431-479], we slightly modified Métivier's frame work to establish the existence for the solution to the nonlinear problem.     

Comments on: “A family of derivative-free conjugate gradient methods for large-scale nonlinear systems of equations” [J. Comput. Appl. Math. 224 (2009) 11–19]

In this note a simple counter example shows that the proof of Lemma 3.3 in [1, W. Cheng, Y. Xiao and Q. Hu, A family of derivative-free conjugate gradient methods for large-scale nonlinear systems of equations, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 224 (2009) 11–19] is not correct, which implies that Lemma 3.2 in [1] is not enough to ensure Lemma 3.3 in [1]. A new proof is given, which leads to a stronger result than Lemma 3.2 in [1]. And this result not only guarantees that Lemma 3.3 in [1] holds, but also improves the corresponding global convergence Theorem 3.1 in [1].     

Weakly Nonlinear Waves in Nonideal Fluids

We study the propagation of weakly nonlinear waves in nonideal fluids, which exhibit mixed nonlinearity. A method of multiple scales is used to obtain a transport equation from the Navier–Stokes equations, supplemented by the equation of state for a van der Waals fluid. Effects of van der Waals parameters on the wave evolution, governed by the transport equation, are investigated.     

Discontinuous solutions to the Euler equations for a van der Waals fluid

In this work we study the discontinuous solutions to the Euler equations for a van der Waals fluid, which contain one shock and one phase transition. We consider the general case when there is a characteristic between the shock front and the phase boundary. We establish the local existence of such solutions.     

Riemann problem in non-ideal gas dynamics

In this paper we consider the Riemann problem for gas dynamic equations governing a one dimensional flow of van der Waals gases. The existence and uniqueness of shocks, contact discontinuities, simple wave solutions are discussed using R-H conditions and Lax conditions. The explicit form of solutions for shocks, contact discontinuities and simple waves are derived. The effects of van der Waals parameter on the shock and simple waves are studied. A condition is derived on the initial data for the existence of a solution to the Riemann problem. Moreover, a necessary and sufficient condition is derived on the initial data which gives the information about the existence of a shock wave or a simple wave for a 1-family and a 3-family of characteristics in the solution of the Riemann problem.     

Ill-posedness of nonlocal Burgers equations

Nonlocal generalizations of Burgers equation were derived in earlier work by Hunter [J.K. Hunter, Nonlinear surface waves, in: Current Progress in Hyberbolic Systems: Riemann Problems and Computations, Brunswick, ME, 1988, in: Contemp. Math., vol. 100, Amer. Math. Soc., 1989, pp. 185–202], and more recently by Benzoni-Gavage and Rosini [S. Benzoni-Gavage, M. Rosini, Weakly nonlinear surface waves and subsonic phase boundaries, Comput. Math. Appl. 57 (3–4) (2009) 1463–1484], as weakly nonlinear amplitude equations for hyperbolic boundary value problems admitting linear surface waves. The local-in-time well-posedness of such equations in Sobolev spaces was proved by Benzoni-Gavage [S. Benzoni-Gavage, Local well-posedness of nonlocal Burgers equations, Differential Integral Equations 22 (3–4) (2009) 303–320] under an appropriate stability condition originally pointed out by Hunter. In this article, it is shown that the latter condition is not only sufficient for well-posedness in Sobolev spaces but also necessary. The main point of the analysis is to show that when the stability condition is violated, nonlocal Burgers equations reduce to second order elliptic PDEs. The resulting ill-posedness result encompasses various cases previously studied in the literature.     

Persistence of undercompressive phase boundaries for isothermal Euler equations including configurational forces and surface tension

The persistence of subsonic phase boundaries in a multidimensional Van der Waals fluid is analyzed. The phase boundary is considered as a sharp free boundary that connects liquid and vapor bulk phase dynamics given by the isothermal Euler equations. The evolution of the boundary is driven by effects of configurational forces as well as surface tension. To analyze this problem, the equations and trace conditions are linearized such that one obtains a general hyperbolic initial boundary value problem with higher‐order boundary conditions. A global existence theorem for the linearized system with constant coefficients is shown. The proof relies on the normal mode analysis and a linear form in suitable spaces that is defined using an associated adjoint problem. Especially, the associated adjoint problem satisfies the uniform backward in time Kreiss–Lopatinski? condition. A new energy‐like estimate that also includes surface energy terms leads finally to the uniqueness and regularity for the found solutions of the problem in weighted spaces. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Temporal and spatial chaos in a van der Waals fluid due to periodic thermal fluctuations

The Mel'nikov technique is applied to prove the existence of deterministic chaos in two problems for a van der Waals fluid. The first problem shows that temporal chaos results as a result of small time periodic fluctuations about a subcritical temperature when the fluid is initially quenched in the unstable spinoidal region. The second problem shows that spatial chaos arises from small spatially periodic flunctions in an infinite tube of fluid if the ambient pressure is appropriately chosen.     

Nonexistence of Slow Heteroclinic Travelling Waves for a Bistable Hamiltonian Lattice Model

The nonexistence of heteroclinic travelling waves in an atomistic model for martensitic phase transitions is the focus of this study. The elastic energy is assumed to be piecewise quadratic, with two wells representing two stable phases. We demonstrate that there is no travelling wave joining bounded strains in the different wells of this potential for a range of wave speeds significantly lower than the speed of sound. We achieve this using a profile-corrector method previously used to show existence of travelling waves for the same model at higher subsonic velocities.     

Nonlinear vibration analysis of double-walled carbon nanotubes based on nonlocal elasticity theory

The nonlinear free vibration of double-walled carbon nanotubes based on the nonlocal elasticity theory is studied in this paper. The nonlinear equations of motion of the double-walled carbon nanotubes are derived by using Euler beam theory and Hamilton principle, with considering the von Kármán type geometric nonlinearity and the nonlinear van der Waals forces. The surrounding elastic medium is formulated as the Winkler model. The harmonic balance method and Davidon–Fletcher–Powell method are utilized for the analysis and simulation of the nonlinear vibration. The simulation results show that the nonlocal parameter, aspect ratio and surrounding elastic medium play more important roles in the nonlinear noncoaxial vibration than those in the coaxial vibration of the double-walled carbon nanotubes. The noncoaxial vibration amplitudes of only considering nonlinear van der Waals forces are larger than those of considering both geometric nonlinearity and nonlinear van der Waals forces.     

Travelling waves for a non-local Korteweg–de Vries–Burgers equation

We study travelling wave solutions of a Korteweg–de Vries–Burgers equation with a non-local diffusion term. This model equation arises in the analysis of a shallow water flow by performing formal asymptotic expansions associated to the triple-deck regularisation (which is an extension of classical boundary layer theory). The resulting non-local operator is a fractional derivative of order between 1 and 2. Travelling wave solutions are typically analysed in relation to shock formation in the full shallow water problem. We show rigorously the existence of these waves. In absence of the dispersive term, the existence of travelling waves and their monotonicity was established previously by two of the authors. In contrast, travelling waves of the non-local KdV–Burgers equation are not in general monotone, as is the case for the corresponding classical KdV–Burgers equation. This requires a more complicated existence proof compared to the previous work. Moreover, the travelling wave problem for the classical KdV–Burgers equation is usually analysed via a phase-plane analysis, which is not applicable here due to the presence of the non-local diffusion operator. Instead, we apply fractional calculus results available in the literature and a Lyapunov functional. In addition we discuss the monotonicity of the waves in terms of a control parameter and prove their dynamic stability in case they are monotone.     

On the positive radial solutions of some semilinear elliptic equations on ℝ n

We study the existence and behavior of positive radial solutions of the equationu + f(u) = 0 in ⁿ . This equation arises in various problems in applied mathematics, e.g. in the study of phase transitions, nuclear cores and more recently in population genetics and solitary waves. The important model casef(u) = – u + u ^p, p>1, describes for instance the pressure distribution in a van der Waals fluid. In this case, we obtain fairly complete knowledge of all positive radial solutions.Supported in part by an NSF grant and a research grant from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota.     

Existence of periodic travelling wave solutions of non-autonomous reaction–diffusion equations with lambda–omega type

Periodic travelling wave solutions of reaction–diffusion equations were studied by many authors. The λ–ω$\lambda \text{–}\omega$ type reaction–diffusion system is a notable special model that admits explicit periodic travelling wave solutions and was introduced by Kopell and Howard in 1973. There are now similar systems which are investigated by means of autonomous dynamics. In contrast, there are few papers which are concerned with non-autonomous cases. For this reason, we apply Mawhin’s continuation theorem to derive the existence of periodic travelling wave solutions for non-autonomous λ–ω$\lambda \text{–}\omega$ systems, and we describe the ‘disappearance’ of periodic travelling wave solutions under special situations. Our main result is also illustrated by examples.     

Characteristic velocity and dispersion relation of linear waves in extended thermodynamics of a van der Waals gas

We study the characteristic velocities of the extended thermodynamics of molecular rotational- and vibrational- relaxation processes for a van der Waals gas. The lower and upper bounds of the characteristic velocity are, respectively, estimated by the one of rarefied gases and the one evaluated on the spinodal curve. We also study the dispersion relation of linear waves, in particular, the phase velocity, attenuation factor and attenuation per wavelength in a low frequency region.

     

A discussion on “A bivariate optimal replacement policy for a repairable system”

In this short paper, a bivariate optimal replacement policy for a repairable system with a geometric process maintenance model is discussed. Zhang [Zhang, Y.L., 1994. A bivariate optimal replacement policy for a repairable system. Journal of Applied Probability 31, 1123–1127] and Sheu [Sheu, S.H., 1999. Extended optimal replacement model for deteriorating systems. European Journal of Operational Research 112, 503–516] obtained different expression of the long-run average cost per unit time (i.e. average cost rate) of the system respectively. We show that both of their results are correct, therefore, Sheu’s comment (1999) on the result of Zhang (1994) is wrong.