Asymptotic behavior of thermoviscoelastic Berger plate (Q974424)

The aim of this work is to study the long-time behaviour of the so-called dynamical Berger plate equations. However, in this work a viscoelastic constitutive relation with a given relaxation function is adopted and thermal interections are taken into account. Memory effects are also considered for heat conduction. The resulting field equations are two coupled nonlinear integro-differential equations to determine the deflection and temperature fields. Heat conduction equation is linear whereas the plate equation is nonlinear due to a nonlocal effect. Initial data for the deflection and temperature fields are given. The plate is hinged and temperature is zero at the sufficiently smooth boundary. The author transforms the field equations to an abstract dynamical system in an appropriate Hilbert space by introducing auxiliary variables. It is then shown that solutions of this system generate a continuous semigroup of nonlinear operators. By using this approach the author is able to analyse the asymptotic behaviour of the field equations and manages to show the existence of a compact global attractor. The analysis is highly sophisticated and ingenious.