Spatial behaviour of solutions of the dual-phase-lag heat equation

In this paper we study the spatial behaviour of solutions of some problems for the dual-phase-lag heat equation on a semi-infinite cylinder. The theory of dual-phase-lag heat conduction leads to a hyperbolic partial differential equation with a third derivative with respect to time. First, we investigate the spatial evolution of solutions of an initial boundary-value problem with zero boundary conditions on the lateral surface of the cylinder. Under a boundedness restriction on the initial data, an energy estimate is obtained. An upper bound for the amplitude term in this estimate in terms of the initial and boundary data is also established. For the case of zero initial conditions, a more explicit estimate is obtained which shows that solutions decay exponentially along certain spatial-time lines. A class of non-standard problems is also considered for which the temperature and its first two time derivatives at a fixed time T are assumed proportional to their initial values. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.