We consider a mathematical model which describes the frictional contact between a piezoelectric body and a foundation. The material behaviour is modelled with a non-linear electro-elastic constitutive law, the contact is bilateral, the process is static and the foundation is assumed to be electrically conductive. Both the friction law and the electrical conductivity condition on the contact surface are described with subdifferential boundary conditions. We derive a variational formulation of the problem which is of the form of a system of two coupled hemi-variational inequalities for the displacement and the electric potential fields, respectively. Then we prove the existence of a weak solution to the model and, under additional assumptions, its uniqueness. The proof is based on an abstract result on operator inclusions in Banach spaces.

In this paper, we are interested in the mathematical and numerical study of the Prigozhin model for a growing sandpile. Based on implicit Euler discretization in time, we give a simple improvement of theoretical and numerical analyses of the dual formulation for the problem. By using this model, we also give some application to the Monge–Kantorovich problem for optimal mass transportation.

The dynamics and oscillatory instabilities of multi-spike solutions to the one-dimensional Gray-Scott reaction–diffusion system on a finite domain are studied in a particular parameter regime. In this parameter regime, a formal singular perturbation method is used to derive a novel ODE–PDE Stefan problem, which determines the dynamics of a collection of spikes for a multi-spike pattern. This Stefan problem has moving Dirac source terms concentrated at the spike locations. For a certain subrange of the parameters, this Stefan problem is quasi-steady and an explicit set of differential-algebraic equations characterizing the spike dynamics is derived. By analysing a nonlocal eigenvalue problem, it is found that this multi-spike quasi-equilibrium solution can undergo a Hopf bifurcation leading to oscillations in the spike amplitudes on an O(1) time scale. In another subrange of the parameters, the spike motion is not quasi-steady and the full Stefan problem is solved numerically by using an appropriate discretization of the Dirac source terms. These numerical computations, together with a linearization of the Stefan problem, show that the spike layers can undergo a drift instability arising from a Hopf bifurcation. This instability leads to a time-dependent oscillatory behaviour in the spike locations.

We consider an equation with left and right fractional derivatives which appears as a mathematical model in the mechanics. The type of equations that we analyse appear, as a rule, in variational problems containing fractional derivatives. We look for solutions in a suitably defined sub-space of distributions which is sufficient to enclose different ‘singular’ solutions.