Wellposedness of a nonlinear parabolic-dispersive coupled system modelling MEMS (Q6137775)

Local well-posedness is shown for a model of an idealized electrostatic actuated microelectromechanical system device made of a fixed ground plate above which an elastic plate is suspended and the thin gap between the two plates is filled with a gas. Introducing the gas pressure \(u\) and the gap width \(w>0\), the model couples the degenerate and quasilinear parabolic equation \[ \partial_t(wu) = \operatorname{div}\big(w^3 u \nabla u\big)\text{ in }(0,T)\times\Omega\,, \] for the pressure and a semilinear plate equation \[ \partial_t^2 w = \Delta w - \Delta^2 w - \frac{\beta_F}{w^2} + \beta_p(u-1)\text{ in }(0,T)\times\Omega\,, \] for the gap width, and is supplemented with nonhomogeneous boundary conditions \[ u=\theta_1\,, \quad w=\theta_2\,, \quad \Delta w = 0 \;\;\text{ on }\;\; (0,T)\times\partial\Omega\,, \] and initial conditions \((u_0,w_0,v_0) \in H^{2+\alpha}(\Omega)\times H^4(\Omega)\times H^2(\Omega)\), \(0<\alpha<1/2\). Here, \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain of \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(n\in\{1,2\}\), and the parameters \((\beta_F,\beta_p,\theta_1,\theta_2)\) are positive. The proof relies on a fixed point argument, first solving the plate equation in dependence of \(u\) with solution \(W[u]=(w,\partial_t w)[u]\) and then handling the equation for \(u\) as a quasilinear parabolic equation with coefficients depending on \(W[u]\).