Coupled systems of nonlinear variational inequalities and applications

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the existence of solutions for a system consisting of two inequalities of variational type. Each inequality is formulated in terms of a nonlinear bifunction $\chi$ and $\psi$, respectively and a coupling functional $B$. We consider two sets of assumptions ${\bf (H_\chi^i)}$, ${\bf (H_\psi^j)}$ and ${\bf (H_B^k)}$, $i,j,k\in{1,2}$ and we show that, if the constraints sets are bounded, then a solution exists regardless if we assumed the first or the second hypothesis on $\chi$, $\psi$ or $B$, thus obtaining eight possibilities. When the constraint sets are unbounded a coercivity condition is needed to ensure the existence of solutions. We provide two such conditions. We consider nonlinear coupling functionals, whereas, in all the papers that we are aware of that dealing with such type of inequality systems the coupling functional is assumed bilinear and satisfies a certain "inf-sup" condition. An application, arising from Contact Mechanics, in the form of a partial differential inclusion driven by the $\Phi$-Laplace operator is presented in the last section.