On an Elliptic Free Boundary Problem and Subsonic Jet Flows for a Given Surrounding Pressure

Abstract

This paper concerns compressible subsonic jet flows for a given surrounding pressure from a two-dimensional finitely long convergent nozzle with straight solid wall, which are governed by a free boundary problem for a quasilinear elliptic equation. For a given surrounding pressure and a given incoming mass flux, we seek a subsonic jet flow with the given incoming mass flux such that the flow velocity at the inlet is along the normal direction, the flow satisfies the slip condition at the wall, and the pressure of the flow at the free boundary coincides with the given surrounding pressure. In general, the free boundary contains two parts: one is the particle path connected with the wall and the other is a level set of the velocity potential. We identify a suitable space of flows in terms of the minimal speed and the maximal velocity potential difference for the well-posedness of the problem. It is shown that there is an optimal interval such that there exists a unique subsonic jet flow in the space iff the length of the nozzle belongs to this interval. Furthermore, the optimal regularity and other properties of the flows are shown.