Overdamped dynamics of a falling inextensible network: Existence of solutions

Abstract

We study the equations of overdamped motion of an inextensible triod with three fixed ends and a free junction under the action of gravity. The problem can be expressed as a system of PDE that involves unknown Lagrange multipliers and non-standard boundary conditions related to the freely moving junction. It can also be formally interpreted as a gradient flow of the potential energy on a certain submanifold of the Otto-Wasserstein space of probability measures. We prove global existence of generalized solutions to this problem.