On the semidiscretization and linearization of pseudoparabolic von Karman system for viscoelastic plates

We deal with the system of quasistationary von Karman equations describing moderately large deflections of thin viscoelastic plates. We concentrate on a differential-type material, which gives rise to a quasistationary system with a linear pseudoparabolic main part and a non-linear differential term. This model arises when considering a special relaxation function involving only one exponential function. The existence and the uniqueness of a solution as the limit of a semidiscrete approximation is verified. The conditions for a linearization of these approximations are stated. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.