Limit behaviour of thin insulating layers around multiconnected domains (Q1611398)

Given a smooth domain \(\Omega \) of \(\mathbb R^n\) and two connected components \(\Gamma _0\) and \(\Gamma \) of the boundary \(\partial \Omega \), thin insulating layers \(\Sigma _0^\varepsilon \) and \(\Sigma ^\varepsilon \) with varying thinness are added to \(\Omega \), respectively against \(\Gamma _0\) and \(\Gamma \). The authors then consider the problem \(-\Delta _pu^\varepsilon =f^\varepsilon\) in \(\Omega \), where \(\Delta _p\) is the \(p\)-Laplace operator, and quasilinear elliptic problems in \(\Sigma _0^\varepsilon \) and \(\Sigma ^\varepsilon \). The boundary conditions which are imposed are of mixed type. Especially, on the outer part of the boundary of one thin layer, \(u^\varepsilon \) is assumed to be an undetermined constant, while the flux through this outer part of the boundary is assumed to be given. Writing the variational formulation of this problem and defining the convex subset of \(W^{1,p}\) of admissible solutions, the authors first prove the existence of a weak solution and derive estimates on this solution. Then they determine the limit of the solution when the thinness of the additional layers goes to 0. They exhibit critical links between the thinness of the layers and the size of the coefficients of the quasilinear elliptic equations in these layers. The limit problems involve different extra terms in the boundary conditions on \(\partial \Omega \), according to these critical links. The proof of the asymptotic result is obtained using the notion of \(\Gamma \)-convergence and introducing appropriate test-functions.