The Existence of Current-Vortex Sheets in Ideal Compressible Magnetohydrodynamics

We prove the local-in-time existence of solutions with a surface of current-vortex sheet (tangential discontinuity) of the equations of ideal compressible magnetohydrodynamics in three space dimensions provided that a stability condition is satisfied at each point of the initial discontinuity. This paper is a natural completion of our previous analysis (Trakhinin in Arch Ration Mech Anal 177:331–366, 2005) where a sufficient condition for the weak stability of planar current-vortex sheets was found and a basic a priori estimate was proved for the linearized variable coefficients problem for nonplanar discontinuities. The original nonlinear problem is a free boundary hyperbolic problem. Since the free boundary is characteristic, the functional setting is provided by the anisotropic weighted Sobolev spaces . The fact that the Kreiss–Lopatinski condition is satisfied only in a weak sense yields losses of derivatives in a priori estimates. Therefore, we prove our existence theorem by a suitable Nash–Moser-type iteration scheme.     

Existence of Compressible Current-Vortex Sheets: Variable Coefficients Linear Analysis

We study the initial-boundary value problem resulting from the linearization of the equations of ideal compressible magnetohydrodynamics and the Rankine-Hugoniot relations about an unsteady piecewise smooth solution. This solution is supposed to be a classical solution of the system of magnetohydrodynamics on either side of a surface of tangential discontinuity (current-vortex sheet). Under some assumptions on the unperturbed flow, we prove an energy a priori estimate for the linearized problem. Since the tangential discontinuity is characteristic, the functional setting is provided by the anisotropic weighted Sobolev space W₂^1,σ. Despite the fact that the constant coefficients linearized problem does not meet the uniform Kreiss-Lopatinskii condition, the estimate we obtain is without loss of smoothness even for the variable coefficients problem and nonplanar current-vortex sheets. The result of this paper is a necessary step in proving the local-in-time existence of current-vortex sheet solutions of the nonlinear equations of magnetohydrodynamics.     

Stabilization Effect of Magnetic Fields on Two-Dimensional Compressible Current-Vortex Sheets

We analyze the linear stability of rectilinear compressible current-vortex sheets in two-dimensional isentropic magnetohydrodynamics, which is a free boundary problem with the boundary being characteristic. In the case when the magnitude of the magnetic field has no jump on the current-vortex sheets, we find a necessary and sufficient condition of linear stability for the rectilinear current-vortex sheets, showing that magnetic fields exert a stabilization effect on compressible vortex sheets. In addition, a loss of regularity with respect to the source terms, both in the interior domain and on the boundary, occurs in a priori estimates of solutions to the linearized problem for a rectilinear current-vortex sheet, as the Kreiss–Lopatinskii determinant associated with this linearized boundary value problem has roots on the boundary of frequency spaces. In this study, the construction of symmetrizers for a reduced differential system, which has poles at which the Kreiss–Lopatinskii condition may fail simultaneously, plays a crucial role in the a priori estimates.     

Global Low-Energy Weak Solutions of the Equations of Three-Dimensional Compressible Magnetohydrodynamics

We prove the global-in-time existence of weak solutions of the equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamics in three space dimensions with initial data small in L ² and initial density positive and essentially bounded. A great deal of information concerning partial regularity is obtained: velocity, vorticity, and magnetic field become relatively smooth in positive time (H ¹ but not H ²) and singularities in the pressure cancel those in a certain multiple of the divergence of the velocity, thus giving concrete expression to conclusions obtained formally from the Rankine–Hugoniot conditions.     

Short-Time Structural Stability of Compressible Vortex Sheets with Surface Tension

A thermodynamically consistent two-phase Stefan problem with temperature-dependent surface tension and with or without kinetic undercooling is studied. It is shown that these problems generate local semiflows in well-defined state manifolds. If a solution does not exhibit singularities, it is proved that it exists globally in time and converges towards an equilibrium of the problem. In addition, stability and instability of equilibria is studied. In particular, it is shown that multiple spheres of the same radius are unstable if surface heat capacity is small; however, if kinetic undercooling is absent, they are stable if surface heat capacity is sufficiently large.     

Global Existence and Large-Time Behavior of Solutions to the Three-Dimensional Equations of Compressible Magnetohydrodynamic Flows

The three-dimensional equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamic isentropic flows are considered. An initial-boundary value problem is studied in a bounded domain with large data. The existence and large-time behavior of global weak solutions are established through a three-level approximation, energy estimates, and weak convergence for the adiabatic exponent ${gamma > frac 32}${gamma > frac 32} and constant viscosity coefficients.     

Singularities in Three-Dimensional Compressible Euler Flows with Vorticity

It is known from earlier work that three-dimensional incompressible Euler flows with vorticity can develop a singularity in a finite time, at least if the initial conditions are of a certain class. Here we discuss corresponding possibilities for flows with compressibility. Naturally, it is known that the shock-wave phenomenon represents an important singular field in compressible fluid dynamics especially in the irrotational case. However, here we are concerned not with that phenomenon but rather with compressible flows where any singularity is associated with the presence of vorticity. In particular we expose the role played by the ratio of specific heats in an adiabatic flow field. Received 9 December 1996 and accepted 4 April 1997     

Active Control of Wave Instabilities in Three-Dimensional Compressible Flows

In many fluid flows of practical importance transition is caused by the linear growth of wave instabilities, such as Tollmien–Schlichting waves, which eventually grow to a finite size at which stage secondary instabilities come into play. If transition is to be delayed or even avoided in such flows, then the linear growth of the disturbances must be prevented since control in the nonlinear regime would be a considerably more difficult task. Here a strategy for active control of two-dimensional incompressible and compressible Tollmien–Schlichting waves and its use in controlling the more practically relevant problem of crossflow instability which arises in swept-wing flows is discussed. The control is through an active suction/blowing distribution at the wall though the same result could be achieved by variable wall heating. In order to control the instability it is assumed that the wall shear stress and pressure are known from measurements. It is shown that, certainly at finite Reynolds numbers, it is sufficient to know the flow properties at a finite number of points along the wall. The cases of high and finite Reynolds numbers are discussed using asymptotic and numerical methods respectively. It is shown that a control strategy can be developed to stop the growth of all two-dimensional Tollmien–Schlichting waves at finite and large Reynolds numbers. Some discussion of nonlinear effects in the presence of active control is given and the possible control of other instability mechanisms investigated. Received 1 May 1998 and accepted 24 September 1998     

Global Existence and Exponential Stability of Spherically Symmetric Solutions to a Compressible Combustion Radiative and Reactive Gas

In this paper, we establish the global existence and exponential stability of spherically symmetric solutions in \({H^i\times H^i\times H^i\times H^i (i=\rm 1,2,4)}\) for a multi-dimensional compressible viscous radiative and reactive gas. Our global existence results improve those known results. Moreover, we establish the asymptotic behavior and exponential stability of global solutions on \({H^i\times H^i\times H^i\times H^i (i=\rm 1,2,4)}\). This result is obtained for this problem in the literature for the first time.     

Existence Results and Blow-Up Criterion of Compressible Radiation Hydrodynamic Equations

In this paper, we consider the 3D compressible radiation hydrodynamic equations with thermal conductivity in a bounded domain. The existence of unique local strong solutions with vacuum is firstly established when the initial data are arbitrarily large and satisfy some initial layer compatibility condition. Moreover, we show that if the initial vacuum domain is not so irregular, then the compatibility condition is necessary and sufficient to guarantee the existence of the unique strong solution. Finally, a Beale–Kato–Majda type blow-up criterion is shown in terms of \((\nabla I,\rho ,\theta )\).     

The Stability of a Compressible Rayleigh Layer

The aim of this work is to determine the linear stability of a compressible Rayleigh layer and to ascertain what role unsteady effects play. A Rayleigh layer is formed when an infinite flat plate is impulsively set in motion in its own plane with constant velocity beneath an initially quiescent fluid. When the fluid is compressible there is a motion both parallel and normal to the plate. The classical boundary-layer scaling is employed to determine solutions which are expressed in terms of a similarity variable and are valid for a large range of Mach, Prandtl and Reynolds numbers. Solutions are presented for both an adiabatic and iso-thermal temperature boundary condition at the plate. The temporal stability of the flow is considered by solving an Orr–Sommerfeld system: here the underlying flow is calculated at a certain time and the instantaneous stability to viscous travelling waves is determined. The stability is seen to be altered by changing the Mach number (an increase of which decreases the stability of the flow), and also by cooling and heating the wall. These results are limited by the fact that the growth of the layer in time is not taken into account. To include this we consider the large Reynolds number limit and use a triple-deck structure to determine the modes characteristics. The triple-deck approach is used to determine an asymptote to the lower branch of the neutral curve and unsteady effects can be included in a consistent manner. For the upper branch, however, a five-deck structure is required due to the fact that the critical layer is now distinct from the viscous sublayer. The upper-branch stability is only calculated to the first order which is sufficient to give an insight into the stability characteristics.     

On Existence of Attractors in Dissipative Three-Dimensional Systems

International Applied Mechanics - The theorems on the birth of attractors from homoclinic loops are proved. Applications of the theorems are considered.     

Interface Stability of Compressible Fluid Displacements in Porous Media

Transport in Porous Media - We use linear stability theory to investigate the effect of fluid compressibility on interface stability during a dissipative displacement (Darcy flow). We find that...     

Linear Pantographic Sheets: Existence and Uniqueness of Weak Solutions

The well-posedness of the boundary value problems for second gradient elasticity has been studied under the assumption of strong ellipticity of the dependence on the second placement gradients (see, e.g., Chambon and Moullet in Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. 193:2771–2796, 2004 and Mareno and Healey in SIAM J. Math. Anal. 38:103–115, 2006).The study of the equilibrium of planar pantographic lattices has been approached in two different ways: in dell’Isola et al. (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Ser. A 472:20150, 2016) a discrete model was introduced involving extensional and rotational springs which is also valid in large deformations regimes while in Boutin et al. (Math. Mech. Complex Syst. 5:127–162, 2017) the lattice has been modelled as a set of beam elements interconnected by internal pivots, but the analysis was restricted to the linear case. In both papers a homogenized second gradient deformation energy, quadratic in the neighbourhood of non deformed configuration, is obtained via perturbative methods and the predictions obtained with the obtained continuum model are successfully compared with experiments. This energy is not strongly elliptic in its dependence on second gradients. We consider in this paper also the important particular case of pantographic lattices whose first gradient energy does not depend on shear deformation: this could be considered either a pathological case or an important exceptional case (see Stillwell et al. in Am. Math. Mon. 105:850–858, 1998 and Turro in Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 39:2255–2259, 2000). In both cases we believe that such a particular case deserves some attention because of what we can understand by studying it (see Dyson in Science 200:677–678, 1978). This circumstance motivates the present paper, where we address the well-posedness of the planar linearized equilibrium problem for homogenized pantographic lattices. To do so: (i) we introduce a class of subsets of anisotropic Sobolev’s space as the most suitable energy space \(E\) relative to assigned boundary conditions; (ii) we prove that the considered strain energy density is coercive and positive definite in \(E\); (iii) we prove that the set of placements for which the strain energy is vanishing (the so-called floppy modes) must strictly include rigid motions; (iv) we determine the restrictions on displacement boundary conditions which assure existence and uniqueness of linear static problems. The presented results represent one of the first mechanical applications of the concept of Anisotropic Sobolev space, initially introduced only on the basis of purely abstract mathematical considerations.     

Transonic Shocks in Compressible Flow Passing a Duct for Three-Dimensional Euler Systems

In this paper we study the transonic shock in steady compressible flow passing a duct. The flow is a given supersonic one at the entrance of the duct and becomes subsonic across a shock front, which passes through a given point on the wall of the duct. The flow is governed by the three-dimensional steady full Euler system, which is purely hyperbolic ahead of the shock and is of elliptic–hyperbolic composed type behind the shock. The upstream flow is a uniform supersonic one with the addition of 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 of determining the transonic shock and the flow behind the shock is reduced to a free-boundary value problem. In order to solve the free-boundary problem of the elliptic–hyperbolic system one crucial point is to decompose the whole system to a canonical form, in which the elliptic part and the hyperbolic part are separated at the level of the principal part. Due to the complexity of the characteristic varieties for the three-dimensional Euler system the calculus of symbols is employed to complete the decomposition. The new ingredient of our analysis also contains the process of determining the shock front governed by a pair of partial differential equations, which are coupled with the three-dimensional Euler system. The paper is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China 10531020, the National Basic Research Program of China 2006CB805902, and the Doctorial Foundation of National Educational Ministry 20050246001.     

Existence of Global Weak Solution for Compressible Fluid Models of Korteweg Type

This work is devoted to proving existence of global weak solutions for a general isothermal model of capillary fluids derived by Dunn and Serrin (Arch Rational Mech Anal 88(2):95–133, 1985) which can be used as a phase transition model. We improve the results of Danchin and Desjardins (Annales de l’IHP, Analyse non linéaire 18:97–133, 2001) by showing the existence of global weak solution in dimension two for initial data in the energy space, close to a stable equilibrium and with specific choices on the capillary coefficients. In particular we are interested in capillary coefficients approximating a constant capillarity coefficient κ. To finish we show the existence of global weak solution in dimension one for a specific type of capillary coefficients with large initial data in the energy space.     

Conditional Stability of Unstable Viscous Shock Waves in Compressible Gas Dynamics and MHD

Extending our previous work in the strictly parabolic case, we show that a linearly unstable Lax-type viscous shock solution of a general quasilinear hyperbolic–parabolic system of conservation laws possesses a translation-invariant center stable manifold within which it is nonlinearly orbitally stable with respect to small L ¹ ∩ H ³ perturbations, converging time asymptotically to a translate of the unperturbed wave. That is, for a shock with p unstable eigenvalues, we establish conditional stability on a codimension-p manifold of initial data, with sharp rates of decay in all L ^p . For p = 0, we recover the result of unconditional stability obtained by Mascia and Zumbrun. The main new difficulty in the hyperbolic–parabolic case is to construct an invariant manifold in the absence of parabolic smoothing.     

Well-Posedness in Smooth Function Spaces for the Moving-Boundary Three-Dimensional Compressible Euler Equations in Physical Vacuum

We prove well-posedness for the three-dimensional compressible Euler equations with moving physical vacuum boundary, with an equation of state given by p(ρ) =  C _γ ρ ^γ for γ > 1. The physical vacuum singularity requires the sound speed c to go to zero as the square-root of the distance to the moving boundary, and thus creates a degenerate and characteristic hyperbolic free-boundary system wherein the density vanishes on the free-boundary, the uniform Kreiss–Lopatinskii condition is violated, and manifest derivative loss ensues. Nevertheless, we are able to establish the existence of unique solutions to this system on a short time-interval, which are smooth (in Sobolev spaces) all the way to the moving boundary, and our estimates have no derivative loss with respect to initial data. Our proof is founded on an approximation of the Euler equations by a degenerate parabolic regularization obtained from a specific choice of a degenerate artificial viscosity term, chosen to preserve as much of the geometric structure of the Euler equations as possible. We first construct solutions to this degenerate parabolic regularization using a higher-order version of Hardy’s inequality; we then establish estimates for solutions to this degenerate parabolic system which are independent of the artificial viscosity parameter. Solutions to the compressible Euler equations are found in the limit as the artificial viscosity tends to zero. Our regular solutions can be viewed as degenerate viscosity solutions. Our methodology can be applied to many other systems of degenerate and characteristic hyperbolic systems of conservation laws.