On the Motion of a Body with a Cavity Filled with Compressible Fluid

Abstract

We study the motion of the system, S, constituted by a rigid body, B, containing in its interior a viscous compressible fluid, and moving in absence of external forces. Our main objective is to characterize the long time behavior of the coupled system body-fluid. Under suitable assumptions on the "mass distribution" of S, and for sufficiently "small" Mach number and initial data, we show that every corresponding motion (in a suitable regularity class) must tend to a steady state where the fluid is at rest with respect to B. Moreover, S, as a whole, performs a uniform rotation around an axis parallel to the (constant) angular momentum of S, and passing through its center of mass.