Well-posedness of a Nonlinear Acoustics -- Structure Interaction Model

Abstract: We establish local-in-time and global in time well-posedness for small data, for a coupled system of nonlinear acoustic structure interactions. The model consists of the nonlinear Westervelt equation on a bounded domain with non homogeneous boundary conditions, coupled with a 4th order linear equation defined on a lower dimensional interface occupying part of the boundary of the domain, with transmission boundary conditions matching acoustic velocities and acoustic pressures. While the well-posedness of the Westervelt model has been well studied in the literature, there has been no works on the literature on the coupled structure acoustic interaction model involving the Westervelt equation. Another contribution of this work, is a novel variational weak formulation of the linearized system and a consideration of various boundary conditions.