Analysis of compressible bubbly flows. Part I: Construction of a microscopic model.

Abstract

In this note, we introduce a microscopic model for the motion of gas bubbles in a viscous fluid. By interpreting a bubble as a compressible fluid with infinite shear viscosity, we derive a pde/ode system coupling the density/velocity/pressure in the surrounding fluid with the linear/angular velocities and radii of the bubbles. We provide a 1D analogue of the system and construct an existence theory for this simplified system in a natural regularity framework. The second part of the paper is a preparatory work for the derivation of an averaged or macroscopic model.