Global Solution of a Nonlinear Conservation Law with Weak Discontinuous Flux in the Half Space ()

1. Introduction
Consider the initial-boundary value problem of a nonlinear conservation law in the half space
(2)
with the initial condition
(3)
and the boundary condition
(4)
where
,
and
are constant, and the flux f is a given continuous function of u, which satisfies the following conditions:
(A1) Its derivative function
is piecewise C1-smooth with one discontinuous point
, and
exists, where
and
represent the left and right derivatives of f, respectively;
(A2)
for
.
For such an initial-boundary value problem (2)-(4), under the conditions of (A1) and (A2), the global weak entropy solution was constructed in [1] for the case of
. We want to study the structure of the global weak entropy solution of the problem (2)-(4) for the case of
under the conditions of (A1) and (A2). As first step, we investigate the Riemann type of initial-boundary value problem, i.e., the problem (2)-(4) with
or
in our present manuscript. The more general problem (2)-(4) with
will be investigated in our forthcoming paper.
The main difficulty in studying the initial-boundary value problem of hyperbolic conservation laws is that the appearance of boundary results in obstacle in analysis. The difficulty lies in two respects: on one hand, the initial-boundary value problem of hyperbolic conservation laws is generally ill-posed; on the other hand, the nonlinear elementary waves will perhaps collide and interact with the boundary at finite time, so that the boundary layer may appear, which requires to give a reasonable boundary entropy condition to ensure the well-posedness of the global weak solution satisfying the relevant physical meaning. Bardos-Leroux-Nedelec [2] first established the existence and uniqueness of global weak entropy solution in the BV-setting for the initial-boundary value problem of scalar conservation laws with several space variables by vanishing viscosity method and by Kruzkov’s method, respectively, and they gave a boundary entropy condition which requires only that the boundary data and the boundary value of solution satisfy an inequality. The other results of existence and uniqueness have been done for the initial-boundary value problem of scalar conservation laws after [2] . The interested readers are referred to [3] - [9] . Because of the influence of boundary, the geometric structure of the solution of initial-boundary value problem for scalar conservation laws is much more difficult than that of corresponding Cauchy problem. In recent years, for the initial-boundary value problem of one-dimensional nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws (2)-(4) with C2-smooth flux, some results have been obtained in this regard. The authors in papers [10] [11] [12] constructed the global weak entropy solutions to the initial-boundary problems on a bounded interval for some special initial-boundary data with three pieces of constant corresponding to the practical problem of continuous sedimentation of an ideal suspension. Liu-Pan [13] [14] [15] gave a construction method to the global weak entropy solution of the initial-boundary value problem with piecewise smooth initial dada and constant boundary data for scalar nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws, and clarified the structure and boundary behavior of the weak entropy solution.
The present paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we introduce the definition of weak entropy solution and the boundary entropy condition for the initial-boundary value problem (2)-(4) and give a lemma to be used to construct the piecewise smooth solution of (2)-(4). In Section 3, based on the analysis method in [13] , we use the lemma on piecewise smooth solution given in Section 2 to construct the global weak entropy solution of the initial-boundary value problem (2)-(4) with
or
under the conditions of (A1) and (A2) for the case of
, and state the geometric structure and the behavior of boundary for the weak entropy solution.
2. Definition of Weak Entropy Solution and Related Lemma
Following the papers [2] [3] , we give the definition and the boundary entropy condition of weak entropy solution for the initial- boundary value problem (2)-(4).
Definition 1 Let
be a bounded and local bounded variation function on
. If for each
and for any nonnegative test function
, it satisfies the following inequality
(5)
where
then
is called a weak entropy solution of the initial-boundary problem (2)-(4).
Lemma 1 If
is a weak entropy solution of (2)-(4), then it satisfies the following boundary entropy condition:
or
(6)
where
.
For the initial-boundary value problem (2)-(4) with general initial-boundary data of bounded variation, its global weak entropy solution in the sense of (5) exists and is unique (see [2] [3] [6] [11] ). In order to clarify the structure of the global weak entropy solution for the initial-boundary value problem (2)-(4) under the assumptions (A1) and (A2), we need the following lemma 2.
Lemma 2 Suppose that the conditions (A1) and (A2) are valid. A piecewise smooth function
with piecewise smooth discontinuity curves is a weak entropy solution of (2)-(4) in the sense of (5) if and only if the following conditions are satisfied:
1)
satisfies the Equation (2) on its smooth domains;
2) If
is a weak discontinuity curves of
, then when
is not the discontinuous point of
,
, and when
is the discontinuous point of
,
or
;
If
is a strong discontinuity curves of
, then the Rankine-Hugoniot’s discontinuity condition
(7)
and the Oleinik’s entropy condition
(8)
hold, where
, and u is any number between
and
.
3) The boundary entropy condition (6) is valid.
4)
By using the analogous technique in references [3] [16] , Lemma 2 is easy to be proved by Definition 1 and Lemma 1, we omit it here.
3. Solution Structures
In this section, for the initial-boundary value problem (2)-(4) with
or
, we shall construct the global weak entropy solution under the conditions of (A)1 and (A)2 and
by employing Lemma 2 and the structure of weak entropy solution of the corresponding initial value problem, and investigate the interaction of elementary waves with the boundary
and the boundary behaviors of the global weak entropy solution. The methods which will be used to construct the weak entropy solutions of the initial value problem and the initial-boundary value problem here are the characteristic method (see also [17] ) and the truncation method developed in [13] , respectively. We only discuss the case of
. The other cases can be dealt with similarly.
For the convenience of our construction work, we first introduce some notations. We denote
(9)
Let
denote a rarefaction wave connecting
and
from the left to the right, centered at point
in the
plane, and
denote a shock wave
connecting
and
from the left to the right, starting at point
in the
plane, where
satisfies (7), (8) and the Lax’s shock wave condition
. We denote a left or right or double-contact discontinuity wave
connecting
and
from the left to the right, emanating from point
in the
plane by
or
or
, respectively, where
satisfies (7), (8) and the contact condition
or
or
, respectively. The left or right or double-contact discontinuity waves are collectively referred to as the contact- discontinuity waves. It is well known that the solution of the shock wave
(or the contact-discontinuity waves
or
or
and the solution of the central rarefaction wave
in
plane is respectively expressed as:
(10)
and
(11)
where
.
If
is an increasing (or decreasing) function with respect to x, which connects
and
from the leftmost to the rightmost, then
is called an expansion wave (or compression wave) connecting
and
, we denote it by
(or
).
When
or
, the problem (2)-(4) is degenerated into a corresponding problem with
(see [13] ). Throughout this section, we always suppose that
. We divide our problem into two cases: (I)
; (II)
.
3.1. Case (I):
According to the discussion framework in [13] , we first investigate the solution structure of the following Riemann problem
(12)
and then by which and Lemma 2, we construct the global weak entropy solution for the initial-boundary problem (2)-(4).
We divide this case into two sub-cases: 1)
; 2)
.
3.1.1.
Let
denote the abscissa of the intersection point of the secant passing through point
and
with the image of f in
plane (see Figure 1).
If
, similar to the discussion in [17] , the weak entropy solution
of Riemann problem (12) includes only a shock wave
starting at point (0, 0) (see Figure 2), and this shock wave solution can be expressed as follows:
(13)
Let
, then
(14)
We can easily verify that this
satisfies all conditions in Lemma 2, therefore it is the global weak entropy solution of the initial-boundary problem (2)-(4).
includes only a constant state
as
or a shock wave
as
(see Figure 2).
If
, by
, (7), (8) and the Lax’s shock wave condition, we have that a compression wave
, which includes two shock waves
and
, i.e.,
, appears in the weak entropy solution
of the Riemann problem (12) (see Figure 3), this compression wave solution
can be written as:
(15)
Set
, then it holds
(16)
By Lemma 2, this
is the global weak entropy solution of the initial-boundary problem (2)-(4).
includes only a compression wave
as
or a shock wave
as
and
or a constant state
as
(see Figure 3).
![]()
Figure 1. The location of
in the
plane.
![]()
Figure 2. The shock wave
of the problem (12) for the case of
.
![]()
Figure 3. The compression wave
of the problem (12) for the case of
.
3.1.2.
By the assumptions on the flux function f, there exist two numbers
such that
and
(see Figure 4). By using of the similar analysis in [17] , the weak entropy solution
of Riemann problem (12) includes only an expansion wave
.
When
,
can be expressed as follows:
(17)
where
satisfies
. Thus this expansion wave solution can be written as:
(18)
for
(see Figure 5), and for
,
(19)
![]()
Figure 4. The location of
and
in the
plane.
![]()
Figure 5. The expansion wave
of the problem (12) for the case of
.
(see Figure 6), and for
,
(20)
(see Figure 7).
If we take
, then for the case of
,
(21)
where
satisfies
; and for the case of
,
(22)
where
satisfies
; and for the case of
,
(23)
Therefore, from Lemma 2, we can also easily verify that
is the global weak entropy solution of the problem (2)-(4).
includes only an expansion wave
, which does not interact with the boundary
and can be written as follows:
(24)
![]()
Figure 6. The expansion wave
of the problem (12) for the case of
.
![]()
Figure 7. The expansion wave
of the problem (12) for the case of
.
for the case of
(see also Figure 5); and