On decay and blow-up of solutions for a system of nonlinear wave equations (Q439271)

This paper deals with initial-boundary value problem for \(2\times 2\) system of viscoelastic wave equations of Kirchhoff type with nonlinear damping and source terms in a bounded domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n\) \((n= 1,2,3)\) having smooth boundary. It is proved in Th. 3.4 that under appropriate conditions on the nonlinearity of the damping and source terms, for certain initial data in the stable set and for larger class of relaxation functions there exists global in time bounded solution of the problem under consideration. Moreover, the energy function \(E(t)\) of the system decays exponentially or polynomially with respect to the exponents \(p\), \(q\) participating in the damping terms of both equations. To do this, Nacao's lemma for difference inequalities is applied. Conversely, for certain initial data in the unstable set it is shown in Th. 4.3 that the solution blows up for finite time \(T\) supposing that the initial energy \(E(0)< E_1\), \(E_1> 0\) being the critical value. The life span \(T> 0\) is estimated from above. The results obtained here improve (generalize) earlier results of other authors on the subject.