Higher regularity of a coupled parabolic-hyperbolic fluid-structure interactive system

This paper considers an established model of a parabolic-hyperbolic coupled system of two PDEs, which arises when an elastic structure is immersed in a fluid. Coupling occurs at the interface between the two media. Semigroup well-posedness on the space of finite energy for {w, wt, u} was established in [1]. Here, [w, wt] are the displacement and the velocity of the structure, while u is the velocity of the fluid. The domain D(A) of the generator A does not carry any smoothing in the w-variable (its resolvent R(λ, A) is not compact on this component space). This raises the issue of higher regularity of solutions. This paper then shows that the mechanical displacement, fluid velocity, and pressure terms do enjoy a greater regularity if, in addition to the I.C. {w0, w1, u0} ε D(A), one also has w0 in (H2(Ωs))d. © 2008, Heldermann Verlag. All rights reserved