Global-in-time existence of weak solutions to Kolmogorov's two-equation model of turbulence (Q2018269)

This article studies the existence of weak solutions \((u,k,w)\) of the Kolmogorov's model for the turbulent motion of an incompressible fluid in the cube \(\Omega=(]0,a[)^{3}\) (\(0<a<+\infty\)) with periodic boundaries conditions over \(\partial \Omega\): \[ \frac{\partial u}{\partial t}+(u\cdot \nabla)u=\operatorname{div}(\frac{k}{w}D(u))-\nabla p +f,\qquad \operatorname{div}(u)=0, \] \[ \frac{\partial w}{\partial t}+ u\cdot \nabla w=\operatorname{div}(\frac{k}{w}\nabla w)-w^{2},\qquad \frac{\partial k}{\partial t}+ u\cdot \nabla k=\operatorname{div}(\frac{k}{w}\nabla k)+\frac{k}{w}|D(u)|^{2}-kw, \] \[ u=u_{0}, k=k_{0}, w=w_{0} \text{ in }\Omega\times \{0\}. \] where \(D(u)=\frac{1}{2}(\nabla u + (\nabla u)^{\perp})\). Here \(u=(u_{1},u_{2}, u_{3})\) denotes the mean velocity, \(p\) is the mean pressure and \(f\in L^2(\Omega\times ]0,T[)\) is a given external force. The function \(k\) represent the mean turbulent kinetic energy and \(w>0\) is the frequency associated with the dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy. The initial data satisfy the following conditions \(u_{0}\in \overline{C^{\infty}_{\mathrm{per}}(\bar{\Omega})}^{\|\cdot\|_{L^{2}(\Omega)}}\), with \(\operatorname{div}(u_{0})=0\), \(k_{0}\in L^{1}(\Omega)\), \(k_{0}(x)\geq \kappa_{*}>0\) a.e. in \(\Omega\) where \(\kappa_{*}\) is a constant, \(w_{0}\) is measurable in \(\Omega\) and \(w_{*}\leq w(x)\leq w^{*}\) a.e. in \(\Omega\), where \(w_{*}\) and \(w^{*}\) are positive constants. With all these hypotheses, the authors of this article prove that \(u\in C_{w}([0,T]; L^{2}(\Omega))\cap L^{2}([0,T]; H^{1}_{\mathrm{per}}(\Omega))\), \(w\in C_{w}([0,T]; L^{2}(\Omega))\cap L^{2}([0,T]; H^{1}_{\mathrm{per}}(\Omega))\) and \(k\in L^{\infty}([0,T]; L^{1}(\Omega))\). One of the main arguments of the proof is given by suitable a priori estimates for the functions \(k\) and \(w\): \[ \frac{w_{*}}{1+tw_{*}}\leq w(x,t)\leq \frac{w^{*}}{1+tw^{*}},\text{ and }k(x,t)\geq \frac{k_{}{*}}{1+tw^{*}}, \text{ for a.e. }(x,t)\in \Omega\times]0,T[. \]