Multiple solutions of a nonlinear boundary value problem with application to chemical reactor dynamics (Q1336215)

The authors study the bifurcation structure for solutions of boundary value problems \(\ddot y - \varepsilon \dot y + Cg(y,z) = 0\), \(\dot y(0) - \varepsilon y(0) = 0\), \(\dot y(1) = 0\), \(\ddot z - M \dot z - M \theta h(y,z) = 0\), \(\dot z(0) - Mz(0) = 0\), \(\dot z(1) = 0\). The main result is an existence theorem for the arbitrary multiplicity of the solutions for \(\varepsilon, \theta\) small and \(C > 0\) large. For the proof, one shows that the upperturbed uncoupled Neumann problem \(\ddot y + Cg (y,0) = 0\), \(\dot y(0) = 0\), \(\dot y(1) = 0\) has an arbitrarily large number of solutions as \(C \to \infty\) which persist for \(\varepsilon\) and \(\theta\) sufficiently small. The result is applied to a class of models for plug flow reactors.