Stability of a Timoshenko system with localized Kelvin-Voigt dissipation (Q2234336)

The authors deal with a Timoshenko beam of the length \(\ell\) divided into three parts : an elastic, a viscous with continuous and discontinuous constitutive law respectively. They consider the system \begin{align*} &\rho_1 \varphi_{tt}-S_x=0\ \text{in}\ \widetilde{I}\times (0,\infty),\\ &\rho_2 \psi_{tt}-M_x+S=0\ \text{in}\ \widetilde{I}\times (0,\infty),\\ &\varphi(x,0)=\varphi_0(x),\ \varphi_t(x,0)=\varphi_1(x),\ \psi(x,0)=\psi_0(x),\ \psi_t(x,0)=\psi_1(x)\ \text {in}\ (0,\ell),\\ &\varphi(0,t)=\varphi(\ell,t)=\psi(0,t)=\psi(\ell,t)=0\ \text {in} \ (0,\ell),\\ & S=\kappa (\varphi_x+\psi)+\widetilde{\kappa}(\varphi_{xt}+\psi_t),\ M=b\psi_x+\tilde{b}\psi_{xt},\\ & \widetilde{I}=I_1\cup I_2\cup I_3,\ I_1=(0,\ell_0),\ I_2=(\ell_0,\ell_1),\ I_3=(\ell_1,\ell). \end{align*} The main result is the dependence of the decay on the position of the components. The system is exponentially stable if and only if the component with discontinuous constitutive law is not in the center of the beam. When it is in the middle, the solution decays polynomially.