Stability properties for some non-autonomous dissipative phenomena proved by families of Liapunov functionals

We prove some new results regarding the boundedness, stability and attractivity of the solutions of a class of initial-boundary-value problems characterized by a quasi-linear third order equation which may contain time-dependent coefficients. The class includes equations arising in Superconductor Theory, and in the Theory of Viscoelastic Materials. In the proof we use a family of Liapunov functionals W depending on two parameters, which we adapt to the `error', i.e. to the size of the chosen neighbourhood of the null solution.