The particle model of compressible fluids (Q4247650)

The author describes the particle model of compressible fluids. The fluid is divided into small mass packets with finitely many internal degrees of freedom that can move independently. The forces acting on these particles are derived from a variational principle. When the particles split and their size tends to zero, there are limits which satisfy the basic physical principles underlying the Euler equations. For barotropic ideal gases one can prove weak compactness of the mass densities in the spaces \(L_p(0,T;L_\gamma(\mathbb{R}^3)), T > 0, 1<p<\infty\), \(\gamma >1\) (typically \(\gamma = 1.4\)), and of the mass flux densities in \(L_p(0,T;L_\beta(\mathbb{R}^3))\), where \(\beta = 2 \gamma/\gamma+1\). The limit functions satisfy the continuity equation expressing the conservation of mass in the distributional sense. A similar result holds also for the entropies \(s\), whereas the entropy production densities converge to positive measures. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0911.00029].