Isentropic Gas Flow for the Compressible Euler Equation in a Nozzle

Abstract

We study the motion of isentropic gas in a nozzle. Nozzles are used to increase the thrust of engines or to accelerate a flow from subsonic to supersonic. Nozzles are essential parts for jet engines, rocket engines and supersonicwind tunnels. In the present paper, we consider unsteady flow, which is governed by the compressible Euler equation, and prove the existence of global solutions for the Cauchy problem. For this problem, the existence theorem has already been obtained for initial data away from the sonic state, (Liu in Commun Math Phys 68:141–172, 1979). Here, we are interested in the transonic flow, which is essential for engineering and physics. Although the transonic flow has recently been studied (Tsuge in J Math Kyoto Univ 46:457–524, 2006; Lu in Nonlinear Anal Real World Appl 12:2802–2810, 2011), these papers assume monotonicity of the cross section area. Here, we consider the transonic flow in a nozzle with a general cross section area. When we prove global existence, the most difficult point is obtaining a bounded estimate for approximate solutions. To overcome this, we employ a new invariant region that depends on the space variable. Moreover, we introduce a modified Godunov scheme. The corresponding approximate solutions consist of piecewise steady-state solutions of an auxiliary equation, which yield a desired bounded estimate. In order to prove their convergence, we use the compensated compactness framework.