Partially Dissipative Viscous System of Balance Laws and Application to Kuznetsov–Westervelt Equation

We provide the well-posedness for a partially dissipative viscous system of balance laws in smooth Sobolev spaces under the same assumptions as in the case of inviscid balance laws. A priori estimates for coupled hyperbolic-parabolic linear systems with coefficients having limited regularity are derived using Friedrichs regularization and Moser-type estimates. Local existence for nonlinear systems will be established using the results of the linear theory and a suitable iteration scheme. The local existence theory is then applied to the Kuznetsov–Westervelt equation with damping for nonlinear wave acoustic propagation. Existence of global solutions for small data and their asymptotic stability are established.