Existence and uniqueness of strong solutions to a two-dimensional fluid-structure interaction system (Q6897843)

The authors consider the motion of a fluid in a 2D container whose reference configuration is \(\overline{\mathcal{F}}_{0}=\bigcup_{k\in \mathbb{Z}}(\overline{\Omega }_{0}+kLe_{1})\), where \(\Omega_{0}=(0,L)\times (0,1)\) is the reference periodic cell. The lower boundary \(\mathbb{R}\times \{0\}=\bigcup_{k\in \mathbb{Z}}(\overline{\Gamma }_{0}+kLe_{1})\), with \(\Gamma_{0}=(0,L)\times \{0\}\), is supposed to be fixed and the reference upper boundary \(\bigcup_{k\in \mathbb{Z}}(\overline{\Gamma }_{e}+kLe_{1})\), with \(\Gamma_{e}=(0,L)\times \{1\}\), is an elastic 1D structure that can move in both the longitudinal and transversal directions. Denoting \((x,t)^{T}\rightarrow (\zeta (x,t),\eta (x,t))^{T}\) the displacement of the structure at time \(t\), the authors define \(\mathcal{F}_{\zeta (t),\eta (t)}\subset \mathbb{R}^{2}\) the fluid domain at time \(t>0\) enclosed between \(\Gamma_{\zeta (t),\eta (t)}=\{(x+\zeta (x,t),1+\eta (x,t))\), \(x\in \lbrack 0,L]+kLe_{1}\), \(k\in \mathbb{Z}\}\), the deformed upper boundary, and \(\mathbb{ R}\times \{0\}\). In the domain \(F_{T}=\bigcup_{t\in (0,T)}\mathcal{F}_{\zeta (t),\eta (t)}\times \{t\}\) with \(T>0\), they consider the Navier-Stokes equations: \(\rho_{f}(\partial_{t}u+(u\cdot \nabla)u)-\operatorname{div}\sigma (u,p)=0\), \(\nabla \cdot u=0\), where \(u\) is the fluid velocity, \(p\) the fluid pressure, \(\rho_{f}>0\) the fluid density, and \(\sigma\) the stress tensor defined by \(\sigma (u,p)=-pI_{2}+2\mu D(u)\), \(\mu\) being the viscosity of the fluid, \(I_{2}\) the identity matrix and \(D(u)\) the linearized deformation tensor. The longitudinal structure displacement \(\zeta\) solves a wave equation in the reference structure cell \((0,L)\): \(\rho_{s}\partial_{tt}\zeta -\beta \partial_{xx}\zeta =\phi (u,p,\zeta ,\eta)\cdot e_{1}\) in \((0,L)\times (0,T)\), and the transversal displacement \(\eta\) satisfies a linear beam equation with inertia of rotation: \(\rho_{s}\partial_{tt}\eta -\gamma \partial_{xxtt}\eta +\alpha \partial_{xxxx}\eta =\phi (u,p,\zeta ,\eta)\cdot e_{2}\) in \((0,L)\times (0,T)\), where \(\rho_{s},\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma\) are positive real constants, and the forcing term \(\phi (u,p,\zeta ,\eta)\) is defined as: \(\phi (u,p,\zeta ,\eta)(x,t)=-\sigma (u,p)(x+\zeta (x,t),1+\eta (x,t),t)-\partial_{x}\eta (x,t)e_{1}+(1+\partial_{x}\zeta (x,t))e_{2}\) on \((0,L)\times (0,T)\). The no-slip boundary condition: \(u(x+\zeta (x,t),1+\eta (x,t),t)=\partial_{t}\zeta (x,t)e_{1}+\partial_{t}\eta (x,t)e_{2}\), is imposed at the boundary \((x,t)\in (0,L)\times (0,T)\) . An \(L\)-periodicity is imposed with respect to \(x\) for the fluid velocity and pressure and for the structure displacement together with the no-slip boundary condition \(u(\cdot ,0,t)=0\) on the bottom of the fluid container, and the initial conditions: at \(t=0\): \(\zeta (x,0)=\zeta_{0}(x)\), \(\partial_{t}\zeta (x,0)=\zeta_{1}(x)\), \(\eta (x,0)=\eta_{0}(x)\), \(\partial_{t}\eta (x,0)=\eta_{1}(x)\), \(x\in (0,L)\), and \(u(x,y,0)=u_{0}(x,y)\) in \(\mathcal{F}(\zeta_{0},\eta_{0})\). \N\NThe main result of the paper proves the existence of a strong solution to this problem on some interval \((0,T_{0})\), under regularity hypotheses on the initial data. The authors give some characterization of the maximal time existence. For the proof, the authors first rewrite the problem in the reference configuration \(\mathcal{F}_{0}\) using a change of variables \(\chi (\zeta (t),\eta (t))\) which maps \(\mathcal{ F}_{0}\) onto \(\mathcal{F}_{\zeta (t),\eta (t)}\). They linearize this problem, they prove a uniform coercivity property of the underlying operator and a uniform Korn inequality in the associated domain, they introduce a regularized problem involving a small parameter \(\varepsilon >0\), they apply a Galerkin method, and they finally let \(\varepsilon\) go to 0.