Discrete energy behavior of a damped Timoshenko system

Abstract

In this article, we consider a one-dimensional Timoshenko system subject to different types of dissipation (linear and nonlinear damping). Based on a combination between the finite element and the finite difference methods, we design a discretization scheme for the different Timoshenko systems under consideration. We first come up with a numerical scheme to the free-undamped Timoshenko system. Then we adapt this numerical scheme to the corresponding linear and nonlinear damped systems. Interestingly, this scheme reaches to reproduce the most important properties of the discrete energy, namely we show for the discrete energy the positivity, the energy conservation property and the different decay rate profiles. We numerically reproduce the known analytical results established on the decay rate of the energy associated with each type of dissipation.