Improved results on the nonlinear feedback stabilisation of a rotating body-beam system

This article is dedicated to the investigation of the stabilisation problem of a flexible beam attached to the centre of a rotating disk. We assume that the feedback law contains a nonlinear torque control applied on the disk and nonlinear boundary controls exerted on the beam. Thereafter, it is proved that the proposed controls guarantee the exponential stability of the system under a realistic smallness condition on the angular velocity of the disk and general assumptions on the nonlinear functions governing the controls. We used here the strategy of Lasiecka and Tataru (1993) and Alabau-Boussouira (2005, 2010). This permits to improve the stability result shown in Chentouf and Couchouron (1999) in the sense that, on one hand, we deal with a general form of the nonlinear functions involved in the boundary controls. On the other hand, we manage to weaken the conditions on those functions unlike in Chentouf and Couchouron (1999), where the authors consider a special type of functions that are almost linear.