Numerical analysis of nonlinear Volterra integrodifferential equations for viscoelastic rods and plates

This work considers the numerical analysis of nonlinear Volterra integrodifferential equations that arise from, e.g., the theory of isotropic viscoelastic rods and plates. Novel properties of the kernel and its derivatives are derived via the Laplace transform, and the regularity of the solutions is proved. Then we apply the Crank–Nicolson method and the second-order convolution quadrature rule to develop the discrete-in-time scheme, and the energy argument is employed to analyze the stability and convergence of the proposed scheme. Numerical experiments are performed to substantiate the theoretical findings.