Convergence of a full discretization for a second-order nonlinear elastodynamic equation in isotropic and anisotropic Orlicz spaces

Abstract

In this paper, we study a second-order, nonlinear evolution equation with damping arising in elastodynamics. The nonlinear term is monotone and possesses a convex potential but exhibits anisotropic and nonpolynomial growth. The appropriate setting for such equations is that of monotone operators in Orlicz spaces. Global existence of solutions in the sense of distributions is shown via convergence of the backward Euler scheme combined with an internal approximation. Moreover, we show uniqueness in a class of sufficiently smooth solutions and provide an a priori error estimate for the temporal semidiscretization.