| Abstract: | This paper continues considerations of transonic potential flow problems by variational methods. A functional which is associated with a boundary value problem for the (full) potential equation and which possesses a real physical meaning is minimized over a class of admissible functions. These functions have to satisfy a non‐linear local entropy condition and a certain boundness constraint. Though this class is not a compact set of the underlying Hilbert space and though the functional need not be convex, the existence of a solution to the established variational problem can be proved by direct methods of the calculus of variations. Furthermore, some properties of minimizers concerning uniqueness, relation to the potential equation, and behaviour on supersonic regions are derived. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
