Analysis of a Class of Frictional Contact Problems for the Bingham Fluid

Abstract.

We consider a mathematical model which describes the stationary flow of a Bingham fluid with friction. The frictional contact is modeled by a general velocity dependent dissipation functional. We derive a weak formulation of the model which consists in a variational inequality for the velocity field. We establish the existence and uniqueness of the weak solution as well as its continuous dependence with respect to the contact condition. Finally, we describe a number of concrete friction conditions which may be set in this general framework and for which our results apply.