Stabilization of a weak viscoelastic wave equation in Riemannian geometric setting with an interior delay under nonlinear boundary dissipation

The stabilization of a weak viscoelastic wave equation with variable coefficients in the principal part of elliptic operator and an interior delay is considered. The dynamics is subject to a nonlinear boundary dissipation. This leads to a non-dissipative dynamics. The existence of solution is demonstrated by means of Faedo–Galerkin method combined with monotone operator theory in handling nonlinear boundary conditions. The main result pertains to exponential decay rates for energy, which depend on the geometry of the spatial domain, viscoelastic effects, the strength of delay and the strength of mechanical boundary damping. An important feature of the model is the fact that the delay term and stabilizing mechanism are not collocated geometrically — in contrast with many other works on the subject. This aspect of the problem requires the appropriate tools in order to exhibit propagation of the dissipation from one location to another. The precise ranges of admissible parameters characterizing the model and ensuring the stability are provided. The methods of proofs are routed in Riemannian geometry. © 2024 Elsevier Ltd