Global structure instability of Riemann solutions for general quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws in the presence of a boundary

This work is a continuation of our previous work [Z.-Q. Shao, D.-X. Kong, Y.-C. Li, Shock reflection for general quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws, Nonlinear Anal. TMA 66 (1) (2007) 93–124]. In this paper, we study the global structure instability of the Riemann solution u = U(x t ) containing shocks, at least one rarefaction wave for general n × n quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws in the presence of a boundary. We prove the nonexistence of global piecewise C1 solution to a class of the mixed initial-boundary value problem for general n × n quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws on the quarter plane. Our result indicates that this kind of Riemann solution u = U(x t ) mentioned above for general n×n quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws in the presence of a boundary is globally structurally unstable. Some applications to quasilinear hyperbolic systems of conservation laws arising from physics and mechanics are also given. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.