Approximation by finite elements, existence and uniqueness for a model of stratified thermoviscoplastic materials (Q996956)

A one dimensional model for the behaviour of non-homo\-geneous, stratified, thermoviscoplastic materials exhibiting thermal softening and temperature dependent rate of plastic work converted into heat is considered. The existence and uniqueness of a solution, its Lipschitz continuous dependence with respect to the data and the regularity of the solution under additional assumptions on the data are investigated. The obtained results hold for all types of boundary conditions. The existence result is based on the Galerkin method for \(\mathbb{P}^1 \setminus \mathbb{P}^0\) finite elements approximation, which in the present situation has the advantage to guarantee the convergence of an approximating scheme of the system. Mostly due to the use of Sobolev embedding theorems on intervals the proofs performed in the work are strictly restricted to the one dimensional case and in several dimensions they should be different.