Exact solutions in optimal design problems for stationary diffusion equation (Q2422332)

A number of problems in electrostatics, thermodynamics and structural mechanics of heterogeneous media reduce to the investigation of the same mathematical model. It is necessary to find the solution of the system of stationary diffusion equations that minimizes some integral functional. The properties of the solution's definitional domain are piecewise and are described by some characteristic function. So, one has to solve an optimal design problem. From the heat theoretical point of view, the problem is about an optimal distribution of inclusions in a continuous medium in order to minimize the total system energy. The authors perform some mathematical relaxations of the problem. The main difficulty is that the set containing the problem's solution is not convex. So the minimization over the large convex domain containing the initial domain is observed. Then the authors focus on the problems with spherical symmetry. Finally, certain examples of solutions of single- and multiple-state problems are given.