  We consider the Cauchy problem for wave equations with unbounded damping
coefficients in the whole space. For a general class of unbounded damping
coefficients, we derive uniform total energy decay estimates together with a
unique existence result of a weak solution. In this case we never impose strong
assumptions such as compactness of the support of the initial data. This means
that we never rely on the finite propagation speed property of the solution,
and we try to deal with an essential unbounded coefficient case.
