Compressible Fluids Interacting with a Linear-Elastic Shell

We study the Navier--Stokes equations governing the motion of an isentropic compressible fluid in three dimensions interacting with a flexible shell of Koiter type. The latter one constitutes a moving part of the boundary of the physical domain. Its deformation is modeled by a linearized version of Koiter's elastic energy. We show the existence of weak solutions to the corresponding system of PDEs provided the adiabatic exponent satisfies γ>12/7 (γ>1 in two dimensions). The solution exists until the moving boundary approaches a self-intersection. This provides a compressible counterpart of the results in [D. Lengeler, M. Ruzicka, Weak Solutions for an Incompressible Newtonian Fluid Interacting with a Koiter Type Shell. Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 211 (2014), no. 1, 205--255] on incompressible Navier--Stokes equations.