Quasistatic nonlinear viscoelasticity and gradient flows (Q282346)

The authors consider the following problem \[ \begin{aligned} p_t (x,t) &= - \sigma(p(x,t)) + \int_0^1 \sigma(p(y,t))dy, \\ p(x,0)&=p_0 (x)\geq 0, \quad a.e. \quad x \in (0,1), \\ \int_0^1 p(x,t) dx &= \mu >0. \end{aligned} \] This is a special case of the equation for quasistatic one-dimensional nonlinear viscoelasticity of strain-rate type. Under some mild conditions on the elastic part \(\sigma\) the existence and uniqueness of global in time solution is proved. Furthermore, the relation with gradient flow is discussed and the existence of global attractor is shown. In the final part of the paper the authors discuss a special cubic case, i.e. \(\sigma (p)=p^3-p\).