Sharp control time for viscoelastic bodies

Abstract

The evolution in time of a viscoelastic body is described by an equation with memory, which can be seen as a perturbation of the equations of elasticity. This observation is a useful tool in the study of control problems. In this paper, by using moment methods, we compare a viscoelastic system which fills a surface or a solid region (the string case has already been studied) with its elastic counterpart (which is a generalized telegrapher's equation) in order to prove exact controllability of the viscoelastic body as a consequence of the assumed controllability of the associated telegrapher's equation.