Analysis of a viscoelastic phase separation model

Abstract

A new model for viscoelastic phase separation is proposed, based on a systematically derived conservative two-fluid model. Dissipative effects are included by phenomenological viscoelastic terms. By construction, the model is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. We study well-posedness of the model in two space dimensions, i.e., existence of weak solutions, a weak-strong uniqueness principle, and stability with respect to perturbations, which are proven by means of relative energy estimates. Our numerical simulations based on the new viscoelastic phase separation model are in good agreement with physical experiments. Furthermore, a good qualitative agreement with mesoscopic simulations is observed.