Mindlin–Timoshenko systems with Kelvin–Voigt: analyticity and optimal decay rates

This paper is concerned with asymptotic stability of Mindlin–Timoshenko plates with dissipation of Kelvin–Voigt type on the equations for the rotation angles. We prove that the corresponding evolution semigroup is analytic if a viscoelastic damping is also effective over the equation for the transversal displacements. On the contrary, if the transversal displacement is undamped, we show that the semigroup is neither analytic nor exponentially stable. In addition, in the latter case, we show that the solution decays polynomially and we prove that the decay rate found is optimal.