180 B. Ducomet and
ˇ
S. Neˇcasov´a
6.3. Pointwise convergence of the velocities
Our aim is to identify the weak limit in (6.10); more specifically, we show that
u
ε
→ u in L
2
(0,T; L
2
(Ω; R
3
)). (6.12)
Note that the main difficulty here is the possible existence of oscillations of the
velocity fields in time.
We know from the result of Starovoitov [38, Theorem 3.1], that collisions
between two rigid objects are eliminated, because the fluid is incompressible, and
that the velocity gradients are bounded in the Lebesgue space L
p
,withp ≥ 4.
Although originally stated for only one body in a bounded domain, it is easy to
see that this result extends directly to the case of several bodies. Here we will use
the terminology introduced in Section 3,
d(∪
n
i=1
B
i
(t)) = d(t) > 0 uniformly for t ∈ [0,T], (6.13)
and, in agreement with Proposition 8.1,
d(∪
n
i=1
B
ε
i
(t)) = d
ε
→ d in C[0,T], (6.14)
wherewehavesetB
ε
i
(t)=η
ε
(t, B
i
).
The absence of contacts facilitates considerably the proof of compactness of
the velocity fields that can be carried over by means of the same method as in [34].
To begin with, as
B
ε
i
(t)
b
→ B
i
(t) uniformly with respect to t ∈ [0,T],i=1,...,n,
we have, for any fixed σ>0,
B
i
(t) ⊂]B
ε
i
(t)[
σ
, B
ε
i
(t) ⊂]B
i
(t)[
σ
, for all t ∈ [0,T],i=1,...,n,
and all ε<ε
0
(σ) small enough.
Lemma 6.1. Given a family of smooth open sets {B
i
}
n
i=1
⊂ Ω, 0 <k<1/2,there
exists a function h :(0,σ
0
) → R
+
,withh(σ) → 0 when σ → 0, such that, for
arbitrary v ∈ V
1,p
:
#
#
#
v−P
k
∪
n
i=1
]B
i
[
σ
v
#
#
#
W
1,k
(Ω;R
3
)
≤ c
D(v)
L
2
(∪
n
i=1
B
i
;R
3×3
)
+h(σ)v
W
1,p
(Ω;R
3
)
(6.15)
with an absolute constant c<∞. Moreover, h and c are independent of the position
of B
i
inside Ω as long as d[∪
n
i=1
B
i
] > 2σ
0
.
Proof. See [17].
At this stage, we use a local-in-time Lions-Aubin argument in order to show
the following:
Lemma 6.2. For al l σ>0 sufficiently small, and 0 <k<1/2, we have
lim
ε→0
T
0
Ω
ε
u
ε
·P
k
∪
n
i=1
]B
i
(t)[
σ
[u
ε
]dx dt =
T
0
Ω
u·P
k
∪
n
i=1
]B
i
(t)[
σ
[u]dx dt.
Proof. See [17].