On the solvability of transonic potential flow problems (Q1090552)

The authors try to answer the fundamental question concerning the solvability of the transonic flow problems for the channels, formulated for the velocity potential, assuming irrotational, steady, adiabatic and isentropic flow of a non-viscous, compressible fluid in a bounded domain \(\Omega \subset R_ n\) \((n=2\) or \(n=3)\). They assume that the boundary \(\partial \Omega\) of \(\Omega\) is Lipschitz-continuous and \(\Omega\) is simply connected. The velocity potential u satisfies the equation: \[ \sum^{2}_{i=1}\partial /\partial x_ i[\rho (| \nabla u|^ 2)\partial u/\partial x_ i]=0\quad in\quad \Omega, \] where \(\rho\) is the density, a known function of its argument. The boundary condition on \(\partial \Omega\) are \(u=0\) on \(\Gamma_ 1\), \(\rho (| \nabla u|^ 2)\partial u/\partial n=g\) on \(S\cup \Gamma_ 2\) with \(\partial \Omega =\Gamma_ 1\cup \Gamma_ 2\cup S\cup {\mathcal M}\), where \(\Gamma_ i\) and S are open sets in \(\partial \Omega\) and \(\mu_{n- 1}({\mathcal M})=0\) (\(\mu\) is a well defined measure). The authors adfirm that if \(g=0\) on S and \(G<0\) on \(\Gamma_ 1\), then we get the situation corresponding to the flow in a channel whose impermeable walls form the set S and are parallel in a neighbourhood of the outlet \(\Gamma_ 1\), which is normal to S. \(\Gamma_ 2\) denotes the inlet. A suitable functional \(\psi\) (u) is constructed, whose minimization is equivalent to the solution of the boundary value problem considered. A minimizing sequence is obtained, whose convergence to the solution is proved with the functional analysis techniques.