Derivation of theory of thermoviscoelasticity by means of two-component medium

We consider the mechanical model of a two-component medium whose first component is the classical continuum and the other component is the continuum having only the rotational degrees of freedom. We show that the proposed model can be used for description of thermal and dissipative phenomena. In special cases, the mathematical description of the proposed model is proved to reduce to well-known equations such as the heat conduction equation, the self-diffusion equation and the equations of the coupled problem of thermoelasticity. In the context of the proposed theory, we consider the original model of internal damping and give interpretation of the volume viscosity.