Construction of a class of integral models for heat flow in materials with memory (Q1121683)

By using the \textit{E. M. Gurtin} and \textit{A. C. Pipkin}'s theory of heat conduction [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 31, 113-126 (1968; Zbl 0164.129)] the present paper is constructing a simple class of models of heat conduction in materials with memory for which the heat flux depends on the temporal history of the temperature gradient, but is independent of its present value. As the authors say the ``objective here is to obtain constitutive equations that incorporate the effects in a qualitatively resonable manner, that are compatible with thermodynamics, and that lead to initial value problems whose analysis is relatively clean''. Only the one-dimensional case is considered and the material is supposed to be homogeneous of unit density. The introduction (Sec. 1) of the paper contains a thoroughly analysis of the present status of the problem, and preliminaries (Sec. 2) are giving the appropriate mathematical framework for studying the forthcoming questions describing the behavior of the introduced models. The main part of the paper is contained in Sec. 3 in which the compatibility with thermodynamics of the proposed constitutive equations are analysed. The Sec. 4 contains four examples of constitutive equations (the Cattanee model among them) satisfying the compatibility with thermodynamics. These examples are enlightening the theory. Various possible modifications of the theory are discussed in the final Sec. 5. The paper is of interest for researchers is continuum thermodynamics and for mathematicians.