  In this paper we prove existence of global in time weak solutions for a
highly nonlinear PDE system arising in the context of damage phenomena in
thermoviscoelastic materials. The main novelty of the present contribution with
respect to the ones already present in the literature consists in the
possibility of taking into account a damage-dependent thermal expansion
coefficient. This term implies the presence of nonlinear couplings in the PDE
system, which make the analysis more challenging.
