Interior Estimates for Generalized Forchheimer Flows of Slightly Compressible Fluids

Abstract

The generalized Forchheimer flows are studied for slightly compressible fluids in porous media with time-dependent Dirichlet boundary data for the pressure. No restrictions on the degree of the Forchheimer polynomial are imposed. We derive, for all time, the interior $L^\infty$-estimates for the pressure and its partial derivatives, and the interior $L^2$-estimates for its Hessian. The De Giorgi and Ladyzhenskaya-Uraltseva iteration techniques are used taking into account the special structures of the equations for both pressure and its gradient. These are combined with the uniform Gronwall-type bounds in establishing the asymptotic estimates when time tends to infinity.