A unified approach via convexity for optimal energy decay rates of finite and infinite dimensional vibrating damped systems with applications to semi-discretized vibrating damped systems

The Liapunov method is celebrated for its strength to establish strong decay of solutions of damped equations. Extensions to infinite dimensional settings have been studied by several authors (see e.g. Haraux, 1991 [11], and Komornik and Zuazua, 1990 [17] and references therein). Results on optimal energy decay rates under general conditions of the feedback is far from being complete. The purpose of this paper is to show that general dissipative vibrating systems have structural properties due to dissipation. We present a general approach based on convexity arguments to establish sharp optimal or quasi-optimal upper energy decay rates for these systems, and on comparison principles based on the dissipation property, and interpolation inequalities (in the infinite dimensional case) for lower bounds of the energy. We stress the fact that this method works for finite as well as infinite dimensional vibrating systems and as well as for applications to semi-discretized nonlinear damped vibrating PDE's. A part of this approach has been introduced in Alabau-Boussouira (2004, 2005) [1] and [2]. In the present paper, we identify a new, simple and explicit criteria to select a class of nonlinear feedbacks, for which we prove a simplified explicit energy decay formula comparatively to the more general but also more complex formula we give in Alabau-Boussouira (2004, 2005) [1] and [2]. Moreover, we prove optimality of the decay rates for this class, in the finite dimensional case. This class includes a wide range of feedbacks, ranging from very weak nonlinear dissipation (exponentially decaying in a neighborhood of zero), to polynomial, or polynomial-logarithmic decaying feedbacks at the origin. In the infinite dimensional case, we establish a comparison principle on the energy of sufficiently smooth solutions through the dissipation relation. This principle relies on suitable interpolation inequalities. It allows us to give lower bounds for the energy of smooth initial data for the one-dimensional wave equation with a distributed polynomial damping, which improves Haraux (1995) [12] lower estimate of the energy for this case. We also establish lower bounds in the multi-dimensional case for sufficiently smooth solutions when such solutions exist. We further mention applications of these various results to several classes of PDE's, namely: the locally and boundary damped multi-dimensional wave equation, the locally damped plate equation and the globally damped coupled Timoshenko beams system but it applies to several other examples. Furthermore, we show that these optimal energy decay results apply to finite dimensional systems obtained from spatial discretization of infinite dimensional damped systems. We illustrate these results on the one-dimensional locally damped wave and plate equations discretized by finite differences and give the optimal energy decay rates for these two examples. These optimal rates are not uniform with respect to the discretization parameter. We also discuss and explain why optimality results have to be stated differently for feedbacks close to linear behavior at the origin.     

A generalized interpolation inequality and its application to the stabilization of damped equations

In this paper, we establish a generalized Hölder's or interpolation inequality for weighted spaces in which the weights are non-necessarily homogeneous. We apply it to the stabilization of some damped wave-like evolution equations. This allows obtaining explicit decay rates for smooth solutions for more general classes of damping operators. In particular, for 1−d models, we can give an explicit decay estimate for pointwise damping mechanisms supported on any strategic point.     

On decay and blow-up of the solution for a viscoelastic wave equation with boundary damping and source terms

In this paper we consider the decay and blow-up properties of a viscoelastic wave equation with boundary damping and source terms. We first extend the decay result (for the case of linear damping) obtained by Lu et al. (On a viscoelastic equation with nonlinear boundary damping and source terms: Global existence and decay of the solution, Nonlinear Analysis: Real World Applications 12 (1) (2011), 295-303) to the nonlinear damping case under weaker assumption on the relaxation function g(t). Then, we give an exponential decay result without the relation between g^′(t) and g(t) for the linear damping case, provided that ‖g‖_L¹(0,∞) is small enough. Finally, we establish two blow-up results: one is for certain solutions with nonpositive initial energy as well as positive initial energy for both the linear and nonlinear damping cases, the other is for certain solutions with arbitrarily positive initial energy for the linear damping case.     

Asymptotic behavior for Timoshenko beams subject to a single nonlinear feedback control

We consider systems of Timoshenko type in a one-dimensional bounded domain. The physical system is damped by a single feedback force, only in the equation for the rotation angle, no direct damping is applied on the equation for the transverse displacement of the beam. Moreover the damping is assumed to be nonlinear with no growth assumption at the origin, which allows very weak damping. We establish a general semi-explicit formula for the decay rate of the energy at infinity in the case of the same speed of propagation in the two equations of the system. We prove polynomial decay in the case of different speed of propagation for both linear and nonlinear globally Lipschitz feedbacks.      

Stabilization of a transmission wave/plate equation

We consider a stabilization problem, for a model arising in the control of noise, coupling the damped wave equation with a damped Kirchhoff plate equation. We prove an exponential stability result under some geometric condition. Our method is based on an identity with multipliers that allows to show an appropriate energy estimate.     

Qualitative aspects for the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equations with localized damping: Exponential and polynomial stabilization

Results of exponential/polynomial decay rates of the energy in L²-level, related to the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation with localized damping posed on the whole real line, will be established in this paper. We use Kato's theory and a priori estimates to obtain the result of global well-posedness and we determine exponential/polynomial stabilization combining the ideas of unique continuation due to Zhang, semigroup property and Komornik's approach.     

Local smoothing effects, positivity, and Harnack inequalities for the fast p-Laplacian equation

We study qualitative and quantitative properties of local weak solutions of the fast p-Laplacian equation, t_∂u=Δpu, with 1<p<2. Our main results are quantitative positivity and boundedness estimates for locally defined solutions in domains of Rn×[0,T]. We combine these lower and upper bounds in different forms of intrinsic Harnack inequalities, which are new in the very fast diffusion range, that is when 1<p?2n/(n+1). The boundedness results may be also extended to the limit case p=1, while the positivity estimates cannot.We prove the existence as well as sharp asymptotic estimates for the so-called large solutions for any 1<p<2, and point out their main properties.We also prove a new local energy inequality for suitable norms of the gradients of the solutions. As a consequence, we prove that bounded local weak solutions are indeed local strong solutions, more precisely .     

Attractors for non-dissipative irrotational von Karman plates with boundary damping

Long-time behavior of solutions to a von Karman plate equation is considered. The system has an unrestricted first-order perturbation and a nonlinear damping acting through free boundary conditions only.This model differs from those previously considered (e.g. in the extensive treatise (Chueshov and Lasiecka, 2010 [11])) because the semi-flow may be of a non-gradient type: the unique continuation property is not known to hold, and there is no strict Lyapunov function on the natural finite-energy space. Consequently, global bounds on the energy, let alone the existence of an absorbing ball, cannot be a priori inferred. Moreover, the free boundary conditions are not recognized by weak solutions and some helpful estimates available for clamped, hinged or simply-supported plates cannot be invoked.It is shown that this non-monotone flow can converge to a global compact attractor with the help of viscous boundary damping and appropriately structured restoring forces acting only on the boundary or its collar.     

Rate of decay of solutions of the wave equation with arbitrary localized nonlinear damping

We study the rate of decay of solutions of the wave equation with localized nonlinear damping without any growth restriction and without any assumption on the dynamics. Providing regular initial data, the asymptotic decay rates of the energy functional are obtained by solving nonlinear ODE. Moreover, we give explicit uniform decay rates of the energy. More precisely, we find that the energy decays uniformly at last, as fast as 1/(ln(t+2))^2−δ,∀δ>0, when the damping has a polynomial growth or sublinear, and for an exponential damping at the origin the energy decays at last, as fast as 1/(ln(ln(t+e²)))^2−δ,∀δ>0.     

Strong lower energy estimates for nonlinearly damped Timoshenko beams and Petrowsky equations

The purpose of this paper is to establish strong lower energy estimates for strong solutions of nonlinearly damped Timoshenko beams, Petrowsky equations in two and three dimensions and wave-like equations for bounded one-dimensional domains or annulus domains in two or three dimensions. We also establish weak lower velocity estimates for strong solutions of the nonlinearly damped Petrowsky equation in two and three dimensions. The feedbacks in consideration have arbitrary growth close to the origin. These results improve the strong lower energy decay rates obtained in our previous papers (Alabau-Boussouira in J Differ Equ 249:1145–1178, 2010; J Differ Equ 248:1473–1517, 2010) for strong solutions of the nonlinearly locally damped wave equation and extend to systems and to Petrowsky equation the method of Alabau-Boussouira (J Differ Equ 249:1145–1178, 2010; J Differ Equ 248:1473–1517, 2010). These results are the first ones for Timoshenko beams and Petrowsky equations.     

Exponential stability for the wave equations with local Kelvin–Voigt damping

We consider the wave equations with local viscoelastic damping distributed around the boundary of a bounded open set We show that the energy of the wave equations goes uniformly and exponentially to zero for all initial data of finite energy. This author supported partially the National Natural Sciences Foundation grant 10271111. Received: February 8, 2005; revised: July 3, 2005     

Asymptotic behavior of the Korteweg-de Vries equation posed in a quarter plane

The purpose of this work is to study the exponential stabilization of the Korteweg-de Vries equation in the right half-line under the effect of a localized damping term. We follow the methods in [G.P. Menzala, C.F. Vasconcellos, E. Zuazua, Stabilization of the Korteweg-de Vries equation with localized damping, Quart. Appl. Math. LX (1) (2002) 111-129] which combine multiplier techniques and compactness arguments and reduce the problem to prove the unique continuation property of weak solutions. Here, the unique continuation is obtained in two steps: we first prove that solutions vanishing on the support of the damping function are necessarily smooth and then we apply the unique continuation results proved in [J.C. Saut, B. Scheurer, Unique continuation for some evolution equations, J. Differential Equations 66 (1987) 118-139]. In particular, we show that the exponential rate of decay is uniform in bounded sets of initial data.     

Large time behavior and L−L estimate of solutions of 2-dimensional nonlinear damped wave equations

We show the asymptotic behavior of the solution to the Cauchy problem of the two-dimensional damped wave equation. It is shown that the solution of the linear damped wave equation asymptotically decompose into a solution of the heat and wave equations and the difference of those solutions satisfies the L^p−L^q type estimate. This is a two-dimensional generalization of the three-dimensional result due to Nishihara (Math. Z. 244 (2003) 631). To show this, we use the Fourier transform and observe that the evolution operators of the damped wave equation can be approximated by the solutions of the heat and wave equations. By using the L^p−L^q estimate, we also discuss the asymptotic behavior of the semilinear problem of the damped wave equation with the power nonlinearity |u|^αu. Our result covers the whole super critical case α>1, where the α=1 is well known as the Fujita exponent when n=2.     

Perfectly matched layers in 1-d : energy decay for continuous and semi-discrete waves

In this paper we investigate the efficiency of the method of perfectly matched layers (PML) for the 1-d wave equation. The PML method furnishes a way to compute solutions of the wave equation for exterior problems in a finite computational domain by adding a damping term on the matched layer. In view of the properties of solutions in the whole free space, one expects the energy of solutions obtained by the PML method to tend to zero as t → ∞, and the rate of decay can be understood as a measure of the efficiency of the method. We prove, indeed, that the exponential decay holds and characterize the exponential decay rate in terms of the parameters and damping potentials entering in the implementation of the PML method. We also consider a space semi-discrete numerical approximation scheme and we prove that, due to the high frequency spurious numerical solutions, the decay rate fails to be uniform as the mesh size parameter h tends to zero. We show however that adding a numerical viscosity term allows us to recover the property of exponential decay of the energy uniformly on h. Although our analysis is restricted to finite differences in 1-d, most of the methods and results apply to finite elements on regular meshes and to multi-dimensional problems. This work started while the first author was visiting the Department of Mathematics of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, in the frame of the European program “New materials, adaptive systems and their nonlinearities: modeling, control and numerical simulation” HPRN-CT-2002-00284. The work was finished while both authors visited the Isaac Newton Institute of Cambridge within the Program “Highly Oscillatory Problems”.     

Sharp estimates of the energy for the solutions of some dissipative second order evolution equations

We establish precise estimates of the energy decay for certain second order dissipative problems concentrating our attention on the effect of the nonlinearity on the constants depending on the initial data in such estimates. In general, when damping terms are superlinear such constants turn out to be superlinear functions of the initial energy. We consider nonlinear terms growing either polynomially or exponentially and apply our results to some concrete partial and ordinary differential equations. In certain particular cases, the optimality of the obtained estimates is also proved.

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Résumé On établit des estimations très précises de la décroissance de l'énergie pour des solutions des problèmes dissipatifs de second ordre, en veillant a élucider la façon dont le terme non linéaire agit sur les constantes dépendant des données initiales qui apparaissent dans ces estimations. En général, pour des terms de frottement a croissance surlinéaire, ces constantes sont aussi des fonctions surlinéaires de l'énergie initiale. Nous considérons des nonlinearités à croissance polynômiale ou exponentielle, en appliquant les resultats obtenus a plusieurs exemples d'équations différentielles ordinaires et équations aux dérivées partielles. Dans certains cas particuliers, on montre également l'optimalité des estimations établies.

     

Global solution and asymptotic behavior for the variable coefficient beam equation with nonlinear damping

This paper is concerned with the initial‐boundary value problem for a variable coefficient beam equation with nonlinear damping. Such a model arises from the vertical deflections of a damped extensible elastic inhomogeneous beam whose density depends on time and position. By using the Faedo–Galerkin method and energy method, we obtain the existence and uniqueness of global strong solution. Furthermore, the exponential decay estimate for the total energy is also derived. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exterior nonlinear Neumann problem

We consider the solvability of the Neumann problem for equation (1.1) in exterior domains in both cases: subcritical and critical. We establish the existence of least energy solutions. In the subcritical case the coefficient b(x) is allowed to have a potential well whose steepness is controlled by a parameter λ > 0. We show that least energy solutions exhibit a tendency to concentrate to a solution of a nonlinear problem with mixed boundary value conditions.     

On the null-controllability of the heat equation in unbounded domains

We make two remarks about the null-controllability of the heat equation with Dirichlet condition in unbounded domains. Firstly, we give a geometric necessary condition (for interior null-controllability in the Euclidean setting) which implies that one cannot go infinitely far away from the control region without tending to the boundary (if any), but also applies when the distance to the control region is bounded. The proof builds on heat kernel estimates. Secondly, we describe a class of null-controllable heat equations on unbounded product domains. Elementary examples include an infinite strip in the plane controlled from one boundary and an infinite rod controlled from an internal infinite rod. The proof combines earlier results on compact manifolds with a new lemma saying that the null-controllability of an abstract control system and its null-controllability cost are not changed by taking its tensor product with a system generated by a non-positive self-adjoint operator.     

Piecewise multiplier method and nonlinear integral inequalities for Petrowsky equation with nonlinear dissipation

This work is concerned with obtention of energy decay estimates for Petrowsky equation with a nonlinear dissipation which is active only in an interior subset of the domain. We prove that the piecewise multiplier method as introduced by [20] and [22] for the wave equation can be extended to the Petrowsky equation. Moreover, we also apply some recent results by the author to obtain precise decay rate estimates for the energy, without specifying the growth of the nonlinear dissipation close to the origin by means of convex properties and nonlinear integral inequalities for the energy of the solutions.     

Polynomial energy decay rate and strong stability of Kirchhoff plates with non-compact resolvent

Using a direct approach, we establish the polynomial energy decay rate for smooth solutions of the equation of Kirchhoff plate. Consequently, we obtain the strong stability in the absence of compactness of the resolvent of the infinitesimal operator.