About the Structural Stability of Maxwell Fluids: Convergence Toward Elastodynamics

Maxwell’s models for viscoelastic flows are famous for their potential to unify elastic motions of solids with viscous motions of liquids in the continuum mechanics perspective. But rigorous proofs are lacking. The present note is a contribution toward well-defined viscoelastic flows proved to encompass both solid and (liquid) fluid regimes. In a first part, we consider the structural stability of particular viscoelastic flows: 1D shear waves solutions to damped wave equations. We show the convergence toward purely elastic 1D shear waves solutions to standard wave equations, as the relaxation time λ and the viscosity μ grow unboundedly λ≡1Gμ→∞ in Maxwell’s constitutive equation for the stress τ of viscoelastic fluids with velocity u (see (3)), G being the waves’speed. In a second part, we consider the structural stability of general multi-dimensional viscoelastic flows. Embedding Maxwell’s constitutive equation in a symmetric-hyperbolic system of PDEs (proposed in our previous publication [ESAIM:M2AN 55 (2021) 807–831] so as to define multi-dimensional viscoelastic flows unequivocally), we can show the continuous dependence of multi-dimensional viscoelastic flows on λ≡1Gμ using the relative-entropy tool developped for symmetric-hyperbolic systems after C. M. Dafermos. It implies convergence of the viscoelastic flows defined in [ESAIM:M2AN 55 (2021) 807–831] toward compressible neo-Hookean elastodynamics when λ→∞.