Uniform ultimate boundedness and asymptotic behaviour of third order nonlinear delay differential equation (Q680230)

In this paper, the authors consider the following nonlinear differential equation of third order with variable delay \[ (\Omega(x,x')x'')' + (f(x,x')x')'+g(x(t-r(t)),\, x'(t-r(t)) + h(x(t-r(t)) = p(t,x,x',x''), \tag{1} \] where \(r(t)\) is the variable delay delay, \(x \in \mathbb R=(-\infty ,\infty)\), \(t \in \mathbb R_+ = [0,\infty)\), the functions \(\Omega\), \(f\), \(g\), \(h\) and \(p\) are continuous functions of the arguments displayed explicitly such that the derivatives \(\Omega_x (x,x')=\frac{\partial}{\partial x}\Omega(x,x')\), \(\Omega_x' (x,x') = \frac{\partial}{\partial x'}\Omega(x,x')\), \(g_x (x,x') = \frac{\partial}{\partial x}g(x,x')\), \(g_x' (x,x') = \frac{\partial}{\partial x'}g(x,x')\), \(f_x (x,x') = \frac{\partial}{\partial x}f(x,x')\), \(f_x' (x,x') = \frac{\partial}{\partial x'} f(x,x')\) and \(h'(x) = \frac{dh}{dx}\) exist and are continuous. In addition, it is assumed that the functions \(\Omega\), \(f\), \(g\), \(h\) and \(p\) satisfy a Lipschitz condition with respect to their arguments, except \(t\). Hence, the existence and uniqueness of the solutions of equation (1) are guaranteed. In this paper, the Lyapunov functional approach is employed to obtain sufficient criteria for uniform ultimate boundedness and asymptotic behaviors of solutions of equation (1). The results obtained in this work include and extend some well-known results. For illustrations, an example is also given.