No label defined (Q4459646)

The authors consider controllability of a system of two coupled Euler-Bernoulli beams, each beam satisfying the classical equation: \[ \rho_i \partial^2 y_i/\partial t^2+ T_i\partial^4 y_i/\partial x^4= 0,\quad \{x,t\}\in\Omega= \ell_i\times \{0,T] \] with \(i= 1,2\). Here \(x\) spans the length \(\ell_1+\ell_2\). \(T_i\) is flexural rigidity \(T_i= EI_i\) in the common usage of these symbols in beam theory. The control \(F= \{f_1,f_2,f_3,f_4\}\) is applied at the coupling point \(x= m\). Initial velocities and displacements are prescribed at time \(t=0\). The authors equate the forces and moments comprising their control vector to the disparity between corresponding displacements and moments at the coupled point. These may have been proportional, but supposedly without loss of generality the proportionality constants were chosen to be unity. The authors first study the static version represented by a fourth-order operator \(\partial^4 y_i/\partial x^4\), and the asymptotic behavior of the corresponding boundary value problem. In this setting they pose an eigenvalue problem. Lengthy and detailed computations lead to proofs of sufficient conditions for controllability, exact controllability, and approximate controllability, respectively. The limitations on the length of the time period \([0,T]\) coincide with previous results of David Russell, W. Krabs and others. An alternate approach resulting in similar results may be obtained by the study of observability, which is related to the speed of transmitting information along the beam, that is the speed of propagation of stress waves. That is indeed a direct consequence of the duality between controllability and observability, which was first discovered by Russell and Dolecki in the late 1960s.