Shock structure in viscoelasticity of relaxation type

We are concerned with the shock structure in viscoelasticity of rate type. The existence of a shock profile, which in the vanishing relaxation limit becomes an elastic shock, is demonstrated by an explicit construction of the solution of viscoelastic equations provided that the equilibrium stress–strain relation is governed by a parabolic law. For a more general stress–strain law which does not differ substantially from a parabolic one, the solution is obtained from a perturbation expansion.