On an ODE from forced coating flow (Q1924458)

The authors investigate travelling waves and stationary solutions to a general equation which describes the flow of a film along a dry flat surface in two different positions. The local analysis of the film surface leads to the study of continuously differentiable solutions to a more general class of third-order ordinary differential equations. Conditions are given that ensure the existence or nonexistence of solutions to any equation in the considered class having some required properties: to be positive in all points before some finite real value, at which the solution and its first derivative vanishes. The proofs are obtained from the matching of two solutions to a given auxiliar initial value problem. The last mentioned solutions are constructed by forward and backward shootings from the origin.