Stabilization of a system of anisotropic thermoelasticity by nonlinear feedbacks. (Q704243)

The objective of the very important paper is to study the stabilization of an anisotropic thermoelasticity system with (natural) Neumann boundary condition and nonlinear internal and/or boundary feedbacks. The authors consider the system of anisotropic thermoelasticity \[ \begin{cases} {\mathbf u}''- \text{div\,}\sigma({\mathbf u})+ \alpha\nabla\theta+ f({\mathbf u}')= 0\quad &\text{in }Q:= \Omega\times\mathbb{R}^+,\\ \theta'- \Delta\theta+ \beta\text{\,div\,}{\mathbf u}'= 0\quad &\text{in }Q,\\ \theta= 0\quad &\text{on }\Sigma:= \Gamma\times\mathbb{R}^+,\\ {\mathbf u}= 0\quad &\text{on }\Sigma_1:= \Gamma_1\times \mathbb{R}^+,\\ \sigma({\mathbf u})v+ a{\mathbf u}+ q({\mathbf u}')= 0\quad &\text{on }\Sigma_2:= \Gamma_2\times \mathbb{R}^+,\\ {\mathbf u}(\cdot,0)= {\mathbf u}_0,\;{\mathbf u}'(\cdot, 0)={\mathbf u}_1, \theta(\cdot,0)= \theta_0\quad &\text{in }\Omega,\end{cases}\tag{1} \] where \({\mathbf u}= {\mathbf u}({\mathbf x},t)\) denotes the field displacements, \(\theta= \theta({\mathbf x}, t)\) is the temperature, \(\sigma\) is the stress sensor field defined by \(\sigma_{ij}({\mathbf u})= a_{ijkl}\varepsilon_{kl}({\mathbf u}),\;\varepsilon({\mathbf u})= (1/2)(\partial u_i|\partial x_j+\partial u_j|\partial x_i)\) is the strain tensor, \(a_{ijkl}\varepsilon_{ij}\varepsilon_{kl}\geq \delta\varepsilon_{ij}\varepsilon_{ij}\) \((\delta> 0)\), \(a_{ijkl}\) are constant coefficients. The coupling parameters \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are supposed to be positive, the function \(a\in C^1(\Gamma_2)\) is nonnegative, the functions \(f\) and \(q\) are continuous and satisfy \(f(0)= q(0)= 0\), \((f({\mathbf x})- f({\mathbf y}))({\mathbf x}-{\mathbf y})\geq 0\), \((q({\mathbf x})-q({\mathbf y})) ({\mathbf x}-{\mathbf y})\geq 0\) \(\forall{\mathbf x},{\mathbf y}\in\mathbb{R}^n\). Main result: The paper generalizes the results obtained earlier (the case \(f= 0\) and the linear feedback, \(q({\mathbf x}) ={\mathbf x}\)) to the case of an anisotropic system (1) with \(f\neq 0\) and of natural boundary conditions. The proposed method consists in showing the exponential stability of the linearization of system (1) by using an integral inequality, obtained by the technique of Bey et al., and the stabilization of the nonlinear system is deduced owing to results of Nicaise.