Global existence for a nonlinear system in thermoviscoelasticity with nonconvex energy (Q1827143)

The author deals with global solvability of an initial-boundary value problem in three-dimen\-sional thermoviscoelasticity arising from the theory of solid-solid phase transition. The stored energy is not assumed to be convex. The novelty of the existence result presented in this paper is that all previous results for similar systems with nonconvex energies either (a) study the one-dimensional case, or (b) in the multi-dimensional case, concentrate on the isothermal problem or include capillary-like higher-order terms that have regularizing effect. The mechanical dissipation is not linearized. To prove global existence on time solutions the author uses a fixed-point argument and the theory of renormalized solutions for parabolic equations with \(L^1\) data.