On the stabilizability of a structural acoustic model which incorporates shear effects in the structural component

In this paper we consider a linear three-dimensional structural acoustic model which takes account of displacement, rotational inertia and shear effects in the flat flexible structural component of the model. Thus the deflections of the structural component of the structure are governed by the Reissner–Mindlin plate equations. We show strong stabilization of the coupled model without incorporating viscous or boundary damping in the equations for the gas dynamics and without imposing geometric conditions. It turns out that damping is needed in the interior of the plate, to which end Kelvin–Voigt damping is introduced in the plate equations. As our main tool we use a resolvent criterion for strong stability due to Tomilov.