We propose a conservation-dissipation formalism (CDF) for coarse-grained descriptions of irreversible processes. This formalism is based on a stability criterion for non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The criterion ensures that non-equilibrium states tend to equilibrium in long time. As a systematic methodology, CDF provides a feasible procedure in choosing non-equilibrium state variables and determining their evolution equations. The equations derived in CDF have a unified elegant form. They are globally hyperbolic, allow a convenient definition of weak solutions, and are amenable to existing numerics. More importantly, CDF is a genuinely nonlinear formalism and works for systems far away from equilibrium. With this formalism, we formulate novel thermodynamics theories for heat conduction in rigid bodies and non-isothermal compressible Maxwell fluid flows as two typical examples. In these examples, the non-equilibrium variables are exactly the conjugate variables of the heat fluxes or stress tensors. The new theory generalizes Cattaneo’s law or Maxwell’s law in a regularized and nonlinear fashion.

Nonlinear hyperbolic systems with relaxations may encounter different scales of relaxation time, which is a prototype multiscale phenomenon that arises in many applications. In such a problem the relaxation time is of O(1) in part of the domain and very small in the remaining domain in which the solution can be approximated by the zero relaxation limit which can be solved numerically much more efficiently. For the Jin–Xin relaxation system in such a two-scale setting, we establish its wellposedness and singular limit as the (smaller) relaxation time goes to zero. The limit is a multiscale coupling problem which couples the original Jin–Xin system on the domain when the relaxation time is O(1) with its relaxation limit in the other domain through interface conditions which can be derived by matched interface layer analysis.As a result, we also establish the well-posedness and regularity (such as boundedness in sup norm with bounded total variation and L 1-contraction) of the coupling problem, thus providing a rigorous mathematical foundation, in the general nonlinear setting, to the multiscale domain decomposition method for this two-scale problem originally proposed in Jin et al. in Math. Comp. 82, 749–779, 2013.

We introduce a cellular automaton model coupled with a transport equation for flows on graphs. The direction of the flow is described by a switching process where the switching probability dynamically changes according to the value of the transported quantity in the neighboring cells. A motivation is pedestrian dynamics in a small corridor where the propagation of people in a part of the corridor can be either left or rightgoing. Under the assumptions of propagation of chaos and mean-field limit, we derive a master equation and the corresponding meanfield kinetic and macroscopic models. Steady--states are computed and analyzed analytically and exhibit the possibility of multiple meta-stable states and hysteresis.

For<i>nn</i> systems of conservation laws in one dimension without source terms, the existence of global weak solutions was proved by Glimm [1]. Glimm constructed approximate solutions using a difference scheme by solving a class of Riemann problems.

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