On the Partial Regularity of a 3D Model of the Navier-Stokes Equations

Abstract

We study the partial regularity of a 3D model of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations which was recently introduced by the authors in [11]. This model is derived for axisymmetric flows with swirl using a set of new variables. It preserves almost all the properties of the full 3D Euler or Navier-Stokes equations except for the convection term which is neglected in the model. If we add the convection term back to our model, we would recover the full Navier-Stokes equations. In [11], we presented numerical evidence which seems to support that the 3D model develops finite time singularities while the corresponding solution of the 3D Navier-Stokes equations remains smooth. This suggests that the convection term play an essential role in stabilizing the nonlinear vortex stretching term. In this paper, we prove that for any suitable weak solution of the 3D model in an open set in space-time, the one-dimensional Hausdorff measure of the associated singular set is zero. The partial regularity result of this paper is an analogue of the Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg theory for the 3D Navier-Stokes equations.

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