Exponential growth of positive initial-energy solutions of a system of nonlinear viscoelastic wave equations with damping and source terms

This work is concerned with a system of nonlinear viscoelastic wave equations with nonlinear damping and source terms acting in both equations. We will prove that the energy associated to the system is unbounded. In fact, it will be proved that the energy will grow up as an exponential function as time goes to infinity, provided that the initial data are large enough. The key ingredient in the proof is a method used in Vitillaro (Arch Ration Mech Anal 149:155-182, 1999) and developed in Said-Houari (Diff Integr Equ 23(1-2):79-92, 2010) for a system of wave equations, with necessary modification imposed by the nature of our problem.