A global estimate for the gradient in a singular elliptic boundary value problem

We investigate the singular problemwhere Ω is a bounded smooth domain, k a bounded, nonnegative measurable function and v Ω 0. For the solution u to this problem, which is shown to exist if k(x) > 0 on some subset of Ω with positive measure, a uniform bound for |∇u| in Ω is derived when k(x) ≧ ψ (dist (x, ∂Ω)) with ψ (s)/sv ∈ Lp(0, a) for some a > 0, p > 1.