Asymptotic behavior in linear thermoelasticity

This paper studies a linear thermoelastic material which exhibits a constit utive equation for heat flux with memory. An approximated theory of thermod ynamics is developed for this model and a maximal pseudo free energy is exp licitly constructed in the frequency domain. This thermodynamic potential i s used to prove stability and domain of dependence results. Moreover, by the thermodynamic restrictions on the heat flux kernel, existe nce, uniqueness, and asymptotic behavior theorems are proved for the unidim ensional model. (C) 1999 Academic Press.