On Boundary Damping for a Weakly Nonlinear Wave Equation

In this paper an initial-boundary value problem for a weakly nonlinear string(or wave) equation with non-classical boundary conditions is considered. Oneend of the string is assumed to be fixed and the other end of the string isattached to a spring-mass-dashpot system, where the damping generated by thedashpot is assumed to be small. This problem can be regarded as a rather simple model describing oscillationsof flexible structures such as suspension bridges or overhead transmission lines in a windfield. A multiple-timescales perturbation method will be usedto construct formal asymptotic approximations of the solution. It will also beshown that all solutions tend to zero for a sufficiently large value of thedamping parameter. For smaller values of the damping parameter it will be shownhow the string-system eventually will oscillate.