Introduction to Shape optimization Noureddine Igbida1 1Institut de recherche XLIM, UMR-CNRS 6172, Facult´edes Sciences et Techniques, Universit´ede Limoges 123, Avenue Albert Thomas 87060 Limoges, France. Email :
[email protected] Preliminaries on PDE 1 Contents 1. PDE ........................................ 2 2. Some differentiation and differential operators . 3 2.1 Gradient . 3 2.2 Divergence . 4 2.3 Curl . 5 2 2.4 Remarks . 6 2.5 Laplacian . 7 2.6 Coordinate expressions of the Laplacian . 10 3. Boundary value problem . 12 4. Notion of solution . 16 1. PDE A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modelling (also written model- ing). Mathematical models are used in many area, as in the natural sciences (such as physics, biology, earth science, meteorology), engineering disciplines (e.g. computer science, artificial in- telligence), in the social sciences (such as economics, psychology, sociology and political science); Introduction to Shape optimization N. Igbida physicists, engineers, statisticians, operations research analysts and economists. Among this mathematical language we have PDE. These are a type of differential equation, i.e., a relation involving an unknown function (or functions) of several independent variables and their partial derivatives with respect to those variables. Partial differential equations are used to formulate, and thus aid the solution of, problems involving functions of several variables; such as the propagation of sound or heat, electrostatics, electrodynamics, fluid flow, and elasticity. Seemingly distinct physical phenomena may have identical mathematical formulations, and thus be governed by the same underlying dynamic. In this section, we give some basic example of elliptic partial differential equation (PDE) of second order : standard Laplacian and Laplacian with variable coefficients.