On the stationary Boussinesq-Stefan problem with constitutive power-laws

• Author(s): Rodrigues, José Francisco ; Urbano, José Miguel
• Date: 1998
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/4667
• Origin: Estudo Geral - Universidade de Coimbra
• Subject(s): free boundary problems; Boussinesq-Stefan problem; non-Newtonian flow; thermomechanics of solidification; p-Laplacian; variational inequalities
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

We discuss the existence of weak solutions to a steady-state coupled system between a two-phase Stefan problem, with convection and non-Fourier heat diffusion, and an elliptic variational inequality traducing the non-Newtonian flow only in the liquid phase. In the Stefan problem for the p-Laplacian equation the main restriction comes from the requirement that the liquid zone is at least an open subset, a fact that leads us to search for a continuous temperature field. Through the heat convection coupling term, this depends on the q-integrability of the velocity gradient and the imbedding theorems of Sobolev. We show that the appropriate condition for the continuity to hold, combining these two powers, is pq> n. This remarkably simple condition, together with q> 3n/(n + 2), that assures the compactness of the convection term, is sufficient to obtain weak solvability results for the interesting space dimension cases n = 2 and n = 3. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TJ2-3SYS06P-1/1/cb47394863f129892f05efa43738440a