On the stationary boussinesq-stefan problem with constitutive power-laws

We discuss the existence of weak solutions to a steady-state coupled system between a two-phase Stefan problem, with convection and non-Fourier heat diffusion, and an elliptic variational inequality traducing the non-Newtonian flow only in the liquid phase. In the Stefan problem for the p-Laplacian equation the main restriction comes from the requirement that the liquid zone is at least an open subset, a fact that leads us to search for a continuous temperature field. Through the heat convection coupling term, this depends on the q-integrability of the velocity gradient and the imbedding theorems of Sobolev. We show that the appropriate condition for the continuity to hold, combining these two powers, is pq > n. This remarkably simple condition, together with q > 3n/(n + 2), that assures the compactness of the convection term, is sufficient to obtain weak solvability results for the interesting space dimension cases n = 2 and n = 3. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.