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].     

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.     

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 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.     

Stability of transonic shocks in supersonic flow past a wedge

In this paper we study the stability of transonic shocks in steady supersonic flow past a wedge. We take the potential flow equation as the mathematical model to describe the compressible flow. It is known that in generic case such a problem admits two possible location of shock, connecting the flow ahead it and behind it. They can be distinguished as supersonic-supersonic shock and supersonic-subsonic shock (or transonic shock). Both these possible shocks satisfy the Rankine-Hugoniot conditions and entropy condition. In this paper we prove that the transonic shock is also stable under perturbation of the coming flow provided the pressure at infinity is well controlled.     

Transonic shock wave in an infinite nozzle asymptotically converging to a cylinder

We construct a single transonic shock wave pattern in an infinite nozzle asymptotically converging to a cylinder, which is close to a uniform transonic shock wave. In other words, suppose there is a uniform transonic shock wave in an infinite cylinder nozzle which can be constructed easily, if we perturbed the supersonic incoming flow and the infinite nozzle a little bit, we can obtain a transonic wave near the uniform one. As a consequence, we can show that the uniform transonic wave is stable with respect to the perturbation of the incoming flow and nozzle wall. Based on the theory of [G.Q. Chen, M. Feldman, Existence and stability of multi-dimensional transonic flows through an infinite nozzle of arbitrary cross-sections, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 184 (2007) 185-242], the crucial parts of this paper are to derive the uniform Schauder estimates of the linear elliptic equation for the infinite nozzle asymptotically converging to a cylinder.     

A linear approximation for the regular reflection of a weak shock at a wedge satisfying sonic condition

The problem of shock reflection by a wedge, which the flow is dominated by the unsteady potential flow equation, is a important problem. In weak regular reflection, the flow behind the reflected shock is immediately supersonic and becomes subsonic further downstream. The reflected shock is transonic. Its position is a free boundary for the unsteady potential equation, which is degenerate at the sonic line in self-similar coordinates. Applying the special partial hodograph transformation used in [Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Transonic shock in a nozzle I, 2-D case, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 57 (2004) 1-51; Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Transonic shock in a nozzle II, 3-D case, IMS, preprint (2003)], we derive a nonlinear degenerate elliptic equation with nonlinear boundary conditions in a piecewise smooth domain. When the angle, which between incident shock and wedge, is small, we can see that weak regular reflection as the disturbance of normal reflection as in [Shuxing Chen, Linear approximation of shock reflection at a wedge with large angle, Comm. Partial Differential Equations 21 (78) (1996) 1103-1118]. By linearizing the resulted nonlinear equation and boundary conditions with above viewpoint, we obtain a linear degenerate elliptic equation with mixed boundary conditions and a linear degenerate elliptic equation with oblique boundary conditions in a curved quadrilateral domain. By means of elliptic regularization techniques, delicate a priori estimate and compact arguments, we show that the solution of linearized problem with oblique boundary conditions is smooth in the interior and Lipschitz continuous up to the degenerate boundary.     

A linear approximation for the regular reflection of a weak shock at a wedge

The problem of shock reflection by a wedge in the flow dominated by the unsteady potential flow equation is an important problem. In weak regular reflection, the flow behind the reflected shock is immediately supersonic and becomes subsonic further downstream. The reflected shock is transonic. Its position is a free boundary for the unsteady potential equation, which is degenerate at the sonic line in self-similar coordinates. Applying the special partial hodograph transformation used in [Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Transonic shock in a nozzle I, 2-D case, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. LVII (2004) 1-51; Zhouping Xin, Huicheng Yin, Transonic shock in a nozzle II, 3-D case, IMS, preprint, 2003], we derive a nonlinear degenerate elliptic equation with nonlinear boundary conditions in a piecewise smooth domain. When the angle between incident shock and wedge is small, we can see the weak regular reflection as the disturbance of normal reflection as in [Chen Shuxing, Linear approximation of shock reflection at a wedge with large angle, Comm. Partial Differential Equations 21(78) (1996) 1103-1118]. By linearizing the resulted nonlinear equation and boundary conditions with the above viewpoint in [Chen Shuxing, Linear approximation of shock reflection at a wedge with large angle, Comm. Partial Differential Equations 21(78) (1996) 1103-1118], we obtain a linear degenerate elliptic equation with mixed boundary conditions in a curved quadrilateral domain. By means of elliptic regularization techniques, a delicate a priori estimate and compact arguments, we show that the solution of the linearized problem is smooth in the interior and Lipschitz continuous up to the degenerate boundary.     

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.     

On transonic shocks in a conic divergent nozzle with axi-symmetric exit pressures

In this paper, we establish the existence and stability of a 3-D transonic shock solution to the full steady compressible Euler system in a class of de Laval nozzles with a conic divergent part when a given variable axi-symmetric exit pressure lies in a suitable scope. Thus, for this class of nozzles, we have solved such a transonic shock problem in the axi-symmetric case described by Courant and Friedrichs (1948) in Section 147 of [8]: Given the appropriately large exit pressure pe(x), if the upstream flow is still supersonic behind the throat of the nozzle, then at a certain place in the diverging part of the nozzle a shock front intervenes and the gas is compressed and slowed down to subsonic speed so that the position and the strength of the shock front are automatically adjusted such that the end pressure at the exit becomes pe(x).     

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.     

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.     

The transonic shock in a nozzle, 2-D and 3-D complete Euler systems

In this paper, we study a transonic shock problem for the Euler flows through a class of 2-D or 3-D nozzles. The nozzle is assumed to be symmetric in the diverging (or converging) part. If the supersonic incoming flow is symmetric near the divergent (or convergent) part of the nozzle, then, as indicated in Section 147 of [R. Courant, K.O. Friedrichs, Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves, Interscience Publ., New York, 1948], there exist two constant pressures P₁ and P₂ with P₁<P₂ such that for given constant exit pressure Pe∈(P₁,P₂), a symmetric transonic shock exists uniquely in the nozzle, and the position and the strength of the shock are completely determined by Pe. Moreover, it is shown in this paper that such a transonic shock solution is unique under the restriction that the shock goes through the fixed point at the wall in the multidimensional setting. Furthermore, we establish the global existence, stability and the long time asymptotic behavior of an unsteady symmetric transonic shock under the exit pressure Pe when the initial unsteady shock lies in the symmetric diverging part of the 2-D or 3-D nozzle. On the other hand, it is shown that an unsteady symmetric transonic shock is structurally unstable in a global-in-time sense if it lies in the symmetric converging part of the nozzle.     

The existence and stability of conic shock waves

We study the existence of the nonsymmetrical conic shock wave produced by a supersonic flow past a distorted conic projectile. For the weak conic shock wave, we establish the existence and its linear stability using the mathematical model of an isentropic irrotational flow.     

Uniqueness of transonic shock solutions in a duct for steady potential flow

We study the uniqueness of solutions with a transonic shock in a duct in a class of transonic shock solutions, which are not necessarily small perturbations of the background solution, for steady potential flow. We prove that, for given uniform supersonic upstream flow in a straight duct, there exists a unique uniform pressure at the exit of the duct such that a transonic shock solution exists in the duct, which is unique modulo translation. For any other given uniform pressure at the exit, there exists no transonic shock solution in the duct. This is equivalent to establishing a uniqueness theorem for a free boundary problem of a partial differential equation of second order in a bounded or unbounded duct. The proof is based on the maximum/comparison principle and a judicious choice of special transonic shock solutions as a comparison solution.     

Stability of transonic shocks for the full Euler system in supersonic flow past a wedge

We study the stability of transonic shocks in steady supersonic flow past a wedge. It is known that in generic case such a problem admits two possible locations of the shock front, connecting the flow ahead of it and behind it. They can be distinguished as supersonic–supersonic shock and supersonic–subsonic shock (or transonic shock). Both these possible shocks satisfy the Rankine–Hugoniot conditions and the entropy condition. We prove that the transonic shock is conditionally stable under perturbation of the upstream flow or perturbation of wedge boundary. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Subsonic solutions to compressible transonic potential problems for isothermal self-similar flows and steady flows

We establish boundary and interior gradient estimates, and show that no supersonic bubble appears inside of a subsonic region for transonic potential flows for both self-similar isothermal and steady problems. We establish an existence result for the self-similar isothermal problem, and improve the Hopf maximum principle to show that the flow is strictly elliptic inside of the subsonic region for the steady problem.     

Steady supersonic flow past a curved cone

This paper studies the steady supersonic flow past a Lipschitz curved cone. Under the assumptions that the cone has an opening angle less than a critical value and has sufficiently small total variation of the tangent of the perturbation and that the Mach number of incoming flow is sufficiently large, the global weak solution is constructed via Glimm scheme for 1<γ<3.     

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.