A model for dynamic frictional contact between a thermoelastic plate and a moving obstacle, which includes frictional heat generation, is presented. The obstacle may be reactive or rigid, and so contact is modeled by the normal compliance or the Signorini conditions. The existence of the unique weak solution for the problem with normal compliance is established by using approximations involving set-valued pseudo-monotone operators, a priori estimates, and Gronwall's inequality.

Key Words: Thermoelastic plate, contact with friction, frictional heat generation, weak solution, existence and uniqueness.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 74M10,
Secondary: 74K20, 74H20, 74H25.