The first objective of this paper is to prove the existence and uniqueness of global solutions for a Kirchhoff-type wave equation with nonlinear dissipation of the form Ku'' + M(|A (1/2) u|(2))Au + g(u') = 0 under suitable assumptions on K, A, M(·), and g(·). Next, we derive decay estimates of the energy under some growth conditions on the nonlinear dissipation g. Lastly, numerical simulations in order to verify the analytical results are given.