Small oscillations of a planar pendulum having the cavity partially filled with a viscous liquid (Q2901616)

This paper is devoted to the mathematical modelling of the motion of a rigid body with the cavity by taking into account capillary forces on the free boundary of a viscous liquid. It is assumed that the rigid body performs pendulum-like oscillations around a horizontal axis. In the moving frame associated with the body, the liquid motion is described by the Navier-Stokes equations subject to the boundary conditions with the Laplace-Beltrami operator. Small oscillations of the whole mechanical system are governed by a coupled system of the above differential equations together with the angular momentum equation. To study the solvability of such an initial-boundary problem, the author exploits an operator approach due to N. D. Kopachevsky and S. G. Krein [see Zbl 0979.76001, Zbl 0979.76002]. As a result, the dynamical equations are transformed to an abstract parabolic equation in a suitable Hiblert space. Conditions for the unique solvability of the Cauchy problem are given for such an abstract equation.