Global Existence of a Solution for Isentropic Gas Flow in the Laval Nozzle with a Friction Term

Abstract

We are concerned with isentropic gas flow in the Laval nozzle with a friction term due to viscosity. It is well known that the flow attains the sonic state at the throat, where the cross section is minimum in the Laval nozzle. However, the present friction term changes the position of the sonic state into downstream, which is called chooking. Our goal in this paper is to investigate these phenomena mathematically. From the mathematical point of view, the friction term is different from normal friction terms such as $-\alpha m$ and difficult to treat with. In spite of its physical importance, the friction term has not received much attention until now. For the case without the friction term, the global existence of a solution was obtained by the author. However, for the case with the friction term, there are only restrictive results. The most difficult point is to obtain the bounded estimate of solutions. To solve this problem, we introduce an invariant region depending on the mass. Adjusting the invariant region, we invent a new difference scheme, which yields approximate solutions including the mass.