The reciprocity gap: A general concept for flaws identification problems (Q1324621)

The authors deal with a class of identification problems defined via a physical phenomenon described by elliptical partial differential equations; more precisely, they focus on the problems of cracks, voids or inclusions detection in a body with known characteristics (not necessarily homogeneous), i.e. on the perturbation identification problems. For this, they introduce the difference between the actual response and those of the unperturbed body; this idea is formalized by using the concept of reciprocity gap, which leads to a functional which in turn can give rise to both practical and theoretical results of identifiability. An application to the detection of planar cracks is given together with some numerical experiments.