Global existence and exponential stability of small solutions to nonlinear viscoelasticity

The global existence of smooth solutions to the equations of nonlinear hyperbolic system of 2nd order with third order viscosity is shown for small and smooth initial data in a bounded domain of n-dimensional Euclidean space with smooth boundary. Dirichlet boundary condition is studied and the asymptotic behaviour of exponential decay type of solutions as t tending to ∞ is described. Time periodic solutions are also studied. As an application of our main theorem, nonlinear viscoelasticity, strongly damped nonlinear wave equation and acoustic wave equation in viscous conducting fluid are treated.