Capillary surfaces over obstacles (Q2266435)

The capillarity problem, the problem of determining the free surface of a liquid partially filling a cylindrical container and in equilibrium under surface forces, gravitational forces and boundary adhesion, is considered with the additional constraint that the capillary surface lies above some obstacle which could for example be the uneven bottom of the cylinder. This gives rise to a variational inequality rather than a boundary value problem. Existence of a solution to the inequality is established and boundary regularity studied. The results extend earlier work of \textit{C. Gerhardt} [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa Cl. Sci. IV. Ser. 3, 157-175 (1976; Zbl 0338.49008)]. The paper also establishes global \(C^{1,1}\)- regularity for a wider class of variational inequalities with conormal boundary condition.