Qualitative study of generalized Forchheimer flows with the flux boundary condition (Q446202)

The authors study the qualitative behavior of time dependent Forchheimer flows subject to the flux condition on the boundary in a porous medium for large time occupying a bounded domain \(U\) with boundary \(\Gamma = \partial U\) in space \(\mathbb R^n\), \(n \geq 2\). The fluid flow in a porous medium has velocity \(u(x,t) \in\mathbb R^n\), pressure \(p(x,t) \in\mathbb R\) and density \(\rho(x,t) \in\mathbb R^+\). A generalized Forchheimer equation, which is considered as a momentum equation, has the form \[ g(|u|)u = - \nabla p, \] where \(g(s) \geq 0\). It is considered the case when the function \(g\) (Forchheimer polynomials) is of the form \(g(s) = a_0s^{\alpha_0} + a_1s^{\alpha_1} + \dots + a_Ns^{\alpha_N}\), \(s \geq 0\). Here, \(N \geq 1\), \(\alpha_0 = 0 < \alpha_1 < \dots < \alpha_N\) are fixed real numbers, the coefficients \(a_i\), \(i = 0,\dots, N\) are nonnegative with \(a_0 > 0\) and \(a_N > 0\). Other equations governing the fluid's motion are the equation of continuity and the equation of state for slightly compressible fluids. For the coupling system obtained, the authors prove that the pressure and pressure gradient depend continuously on the boundary flux, initial data and coefficients of the Forchheimer polynomial in the momentum equation. In addition, the asymptotic dependence of the shifted solution on the asymptotic behavior of the boundary data is presented.