Fluid–rigid body interaction in a compressible electrically conducting fluid

Abstract

We consider a system of multiple insulating rigid bodies moving inside of an electrically conducting compressible fluid. In this system, we take into account the interaction of the fluid with the bodies as well as with the electromagnetic fields trespassing both the fluid and the solids. The main result of this paper yields the existence of weak solutions to the system. While the mechanical part of the problem can be dealt with via a classical penalization method, the electromagnetic part requires an approximation by means of a hybrid discrete–continuous in time system: The discrete part of the approximation enables us to handle the solution‐dependent test functions in our variational formulation of the induction equation, whereas the continuous part makes sure that the nonnegativity of the density and subsequently a meaningful energy inequality is preserved in the approximate system.