Optimization of the thickness of layers of sandwich conical shells (Q1178307)

The author studies the optimal design problem for sandwich conical shells and constructs in the first part the functional framework in a variational form, including an elliptic linear operator whose coefficients are design control variables. Using the method of penalization exposed by \textit{V. Barbu} [see ``Optimal control of variational inequalities'' (1984; Zbl 0574.49005)] he establishes necessary optimality conditions in the second part. The theoretical results are then applied to sandwich conical shells, composed from individual layers, in such a way as to behave macroscopically as homogeneous, orthotropic, and linearly elastic material, with its material symmetry axes parallel to the principal coordinates of the shell, to thermoelastic slabs and to air-supported membrane structures.