A Stefan problem for a non-classical heat equation with a convective condition (Q618103)

They consider the one-phase Stefan problem for a non-classical heat equation for a semi-infinite material with a convective free boundary condition. Also they assumed that the heat source depends on the temperature at the fixed face \(x=0\). The problem is as follows. They determined the temperature \(u=u(x,t)\) and the free boundary \(x=s(t)\) which satisfied the following conditions: (1) \(u_t-u_{xx}=-F(u(0,t))\) \(0<x<s(t)\), \(0<t<T\), (2) \(u_x(0,t)=g(t)[u(0,t)-f(t)]\), \(f(t)\geq0\), \(0\leq t<T\), (3) \(u(s(t),t)=0\), \(0<t<T\), (4) \(u_x(s(t),t)=-\dot s(t)\), \(0<t<T\), (5) \(u(x,0)=h(x)\geq0\), \(0\leq x\leq b\), (6) \(s(0)=b(b>0)\), where: \(F\) is the control function depends on the evolution of the temperature at the extremum \(x=0\), \(g(t)\) -- is the thermal transfer coefficient depending on the time, \(f(t)\) -- is the temperature of the external fluid. In the paper the author proved the existence and uniqueness, local in time of the solution to the problem (1)--(6). At first they proved that the non-classical Stefan problem (1)--(6) is equivalent to a system of two Volterra integral equations. In order to get it they used the Friedman-Rubinstein method. Next using the Banach contraction theorem they proved that a system of two Volterra integral equation has a unique local solution. At the end they obtained a comparison result of the solution of the considered problem with respect to the one corresponding with null source term. The consideration they performed in the class of continuous functions.