Systems of quasilinear conservation laws and algorithmization of variational principles

Abstract

A previously formulated new approach to the consideration of systems of quasilinear hyperbolic equations on the basis of variational principles is described in more detail in the case of special systems of three equations. It is shown that each field of characteristics can be represented as a solution of a variational problem. Moreover, the Rankine–Hugoniot relations at the corner points of the characteristics or at the intersections of the characteristics of a single family hold automatically. In the simplest case of the Hopf equation, a numerical algorithm is constructed on the basis of a variational principle.