Energy decay estimates of elastic transmission wave/beam systems with a local Kelvin-Voigt damping

Abstract: We consider a beam and a wave equations coupled on an elastic beam through transmission conditions. The damping which is locally distributed acts through one of the two equations only; its effect is transmitted to the other equation through the coupling. First we consider the case where the dissipation acts through the beam equation. Using a recent result of Borichev and Tomilov on polynomial decay characterization of bounded semigroups we provide a precise decay estimates showing that the energy of this coupled system decays polynomially as the time variable goes to infinity. Second, we discuss the case where the damping acts through the wave equation. Proceeding as in the first case, we prove that this system is also polynomially stable and we provide precise polynomial decay estimates for its energy. Finally, we show the lack of uniform exponential decay of solutions for both models.