In this paper, we consider the time decay of the solutions to some problems arising in strain gradient thermoelasticity. We restrict to the two-dimensional case, and we assume that two dissipative mechanisms are introduced, the temperature and the mass dissipation. First, we show that this problem is well-posed proving that the operator defining it generates a contractive semigroup of linear operators. Then, assuming that the function involving the coupling terms is elliptic, the exponential decay of the solutions is concluded as well as the analyticity of the solutions. Finally, we describe how to obtain the exponential stability in the case of hyperbolic dissipation.

The problem of inverting the total divergence operator is central to finding components of a given conservation law. This might not be taxing for a low-order conservation law of a scalar partial differential equation, but integrable systems have conservation laws of arbitrarily high order that must be found with the aid of computer algebra. Even low-order conservation laws of complex systems can be hard to find and invert. This paper describes a new, efficient approach to the inversion problem. Two main tools are developed: partial Euler operators and partial scalings. These lead to a line integral formula for the inversion of a total derivative and a procedure for inverting a given total divergence concisely.

Two boundary value problems are solved for potential steady-state 2D Darcian seepage flows towards a line sink in a homogeneous isotropic soil from a ponded land surface, which is not flat but profiled. The aim of this shaping is ‘uniformisation’ of the velocity and travel time between this surface and a horizontal drain modelled by a line sink. The complex potential domain is a half-strip, which is mapped onto a reference plane. Either the velocity magnitude or a vertical coordinate along the land surface are control variables. Either a complexified velocity or complex physical coordinate is reconstructed by solving mixed boundary-value problems with the help of the Keldysh-Sedov formula via singular integrals, the kernel of which are the control functions. The flow nets, isotachs and breakthrough curves are found by computer algebra routines. A designed soil hump above the drain ameliorates an unwanted ‘preferential flow’ (shortcut) and improves leaching of salinised soil of a cropfield during a pre-cultivation season.

Evaporation within porous media is both a multiscale and interface-driven process, since the phase change at the evaporating interfaces within the pores generates a vapour flow and depends on the transport of vapour through the porous medium. While homogenised models of flow and chemical transport in porous media allow multiscale processes to be modelled efficiently, it is not clear how the multiscale effects impact the interface conditions required for these homogenised models. In this paper, we derive a homogenised model, including effective interface conditions, for the motion of an evaporation front through a porous medium, using a combined homogenisation and boundary layer analysis. This analysis extends previous work for a purely diffusive problem to include both gas flow and the advective–diffusive transport of material. We investigate the effect that different microscale models describing the chemistry of the evaporation have on the homogenised interface conditions. In particular, we identify a new effective parameter, $\mathcal{L}$, the average microscale interface length, which modifies the effective evaporation rate in the homogenised model. Like the effective diffusivity and permeability of a porous medium, $\mathcal{L}$ may be found by solving a periodic cell problem on the microscale. We also show that the different microscale models of the interface chemistry result in fundamentally different fine-scale behaviour at, and near, the interface.

We present a mathematical model built to describe the fluid dynamics for the heat transfer fluid in a parabolic trough power plant. Such a power plant consists of a network of tubes for the heat transport fluid. In view of optimisation tasks in the planning and in the operational phase, it is crucial to find a compromise between a very detailed description of many possible physical phenomena and a necessary simplicity needed for a fast and robust computational approach. We present the model, a numerical approach, simulation for single tubes and also for realistic network settings. In addition, we optimise the power output with respect to the operational parameters.

The boundary element method for the eddy current problem (BEM-ECP) was proposed in a number of papers and is applicable to important tasks such as the problem of inductive heating and transmission of electromagnetic energy. BEM-ECP requires the construction of a system of linear algebraic equations in which the matrix is inherently dense and is constructed out of element matrices. For the process of the element matrix computation, two cases are normally considered: far-field interaction and near-field interaction, because the construction of element matrices requires integration of a singular function. In this article, we suggest a transform that allows computing the matrix components of the near-singular interaction part while implementing only the single and double layer potentials. The previously suggested modified double layer potential (MDLP) can be integrated by means of this transform, which simplifies the program implementation of BEM-ECP significantly. Solving model problems, we analyse the drawbacks of the previously suggested approach. This analysis includes the proof of the MDLP singularity that makes the integration of this potential a rather difficult task without the help of our transform. The previously suggested approach does not work well with surfaces that are not smooth. Our approach does consider such cases, which is its main advantage. We demonstrate this on the model problems with known analytical solutions.

The aim of this paper is to study the dimension reduction analysis of an elastic plate with small thickness reinforced with increasing number of thin ribbons developing fractal geometry. We prove the $\Gamma $-convergence of the energy functionals to a two-dimensional effective energy including singular terms supported within the Sierpinski carpet.

We carry out the extended symmetry analysis of an ultraparabolic Fokker–Planck equation with three independent variables, which is also called the Kolmogorov equation and is singled out within the class of such Fokker–Planck equations by its remarkable symmetry properties. In particular, its essential Lie invariance algebra is eight-dimensional, which is the maximum dimension within the above class. We compute the complete point symmetry pseudogroup of the Fokker–Planck equation using the direct method, analyse its structure and single out its essential subgroup. After listing inequivalent one- and two-dimensional subalgebras of the essential and maximal Lie invariance algebras of this equation, we exhaustively classify its Lie reductions, carry out its peculiar generalised reductions and relate the latter reductions to generating solutions with iterative action of Lie-symmetry operators. As a result, we construct wide families of exact solutions of the Fokker–Planck equation, in particular, those parameterised by an arbitrary finite number of arbitrary solutions of the (1+1)-dimensional linear heat equation. We also establish the point similarity of the Fokker–Planck equation to the (1+2)-dimensional Kramers equations whose essential Lie invariance algebras are eight-dimensional, which allows us to find wide families of exact solutions of these Kramers equations in an easy way.

The dynamics of interfaces in slow diffusion equations with strong absorption are studied. Asymptotic methods are used to give descriptions of the behaviour local to a comprehensive range of possible singular events that can occur in any evolution. These events are: when an interface changes its direction of propagation (reversing and anti-reversing), when an interface detaches from an absorbing obstacle (detaching), when two interfaces are formed by film rupture (touchdown) and when the solution undergoes extinction. Our account of extinction and self-similar reversing and anti-reversing is built upon previous work; results on non-self-similar reversing and anti-reversing and on the various types of detachment and touchdown are developed from scratch. In all cases, verification of the asymptotic results against numerical solutions to the full PDE is provided. Self-similar solutions, both of the full equation and of its asymptotic limits, play a central role in the analysis.

In this paper, we consider a general single population model with delay and patch structure, which could model the population loss during the dispersal. It is shown that the model admits a unique positive equilibrium when the dispersal rate is smaller than a critical value. The stability of the positive equilibrium and associated Hopf bifurcation are investigated when the dispersal rate is small or near the critical value. Moreover, we show the effect of network topology on Hopf bifurcation values for a delayed logistic population model.

Cooperative coordination in multi-agent systems has been a topic of interest in networked control theory in recent years. In contrast to cooperative agents, Byzantine agents in a network are capable to manipulate their data arbitrarily and send bad messages to neighbors, causing serious network security issues. This paper is concerned with resilient tracking consensus over a time-varying random directed graph, which consists of cooperative agents, Byzantine agents and a single leader. The objective of resilient tracking consensus is the convergence of cooperative agents to the leader in the presence of those deleterious Byzantine agents. We assume that the number and identity of the Byzantine agents are not known to cooperative agents, and the communication edges in the graph are dynamically randomly evolving. Based upon linear system analysis and a martingale convergence theorem, we design a linear discrete-time protocol to ensure tracking consensus almost surely in a purely distributed manner. Some numerical examples are provided to verify our theoretical results.

This paper is concerned with the increasing stability of the inverse source problem for the elastic wave equation with attenuation in three dimensions. The stability estimate consists of the Lipschitz type data discrepancy and the high frequency tail of the source function, where the latter decreases as the upper bound of the frequency increases. The stability also shows exponential dependence on the attenuation coefficient. The ingredients of the analysis include Carleman estimates and time decay estimates for the elastic wave equation to obtain an exact observability bound, and the study of the resonance-free region and an upper bound of the resolvent in this region for the elliptic operator with respect to the complex frequency. The advantage of the method developed in this work is that it can be used to study the case of variable attenuation coefficient.