Relaxation of an optimal design problem for the heat equation (Q2481497)

The paper deals with the heat equation in a cylinder domain \((0,T)\times\Omega\), \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N\), \(N\geqslant 1\). The main attention is paid to the nonlinear optimal design problem which consists in finding the distribution in \(\Omega\) of two given isotropic materials which minimizes a suitable cost functional depending on the heat flux. The following two cases are considered. In the first one, the coefficients of the equation are time-independent, in the second one, they are time-dependent. For each case, well-posed relaxation is obtained by using one of the two approaches: the homogenization method and the tools of non-convex variational problems. Results of a numerical experiment are given.