Unidirectional evolution equations of diffusion type (1501.01072v1)
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the uniqueness, existence, comparison principle and long-time behavior of solutions to the initial-boundary value problem for a unidirectional diffusion equation. The unidirectional evolution often appears in Damage Mechanics due to the strong irreversibility of crack propagation or damage evolution. The existence of solutions is proved in an L2-framework by introducing a peculiar discretization of the unidirectional diffusion equation by means of variational inequities of obstacle type and by developing a regularity theory for such variational inequalities. The novel discretization argument will be also applied to prove the comparison principle as well as to investigate the long-time behavior of solutions.