Dirichlet conditions in Poincar\'e-Sobolev inequalities: the sub-homogeneous case

We investigate the dependence of optimal constants in Poincar\'e- Sobolev inequalities of planar domains on the region where the Dirichlet condition is imposed. More precisely, we look for the best Dirichlet regions, among closed and connected sets with prescribed total length $L$ (one-dimensional Hausdorff measure), that make these constants as small as possible. We study their limiting behaviour, showing, in particular, that Dirichler regions homogenize inside the domain with comb-shaped structures, periodically distribuited at different scales and with different orientations. To keep track of these information we rely on a $\Gamma$-convergence result in the class of varifolds. This also permits applications to reinforcements of anisotropic elastic membranes. At last, we provide some evidences for a conjecture.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1412.294

Asymptotics of an optimal compliance-location problem

We consider the problem of placing n small balls of given radius in a certain domain subject to a force f in order to minimize the compliance of the configuration. Then we let n tend to infinity and look at the asymptotics of the minimization problem, after properly scaling the functionals involved, and to the limit distribution of the centres of the balls. This problem is both linked to optimal location and shape optimization problems.Comment: 20 pages with 2 figures; final accepted version (minor changes, some extra details on the positivity assumption on $f$

Where best to place a Dirichlet condition in an anisotropic membrane?

We study a shape optimization problem for the first eigenvalue of an elliptic operator in divergence form, with non constant coefficients, over a fixed domain $\Omega$. Dirichlet conditions are imposed along $\partial \Omega$ and, in addition, along a set $\Sigma$ of prescribed length ($1$-dimensional Hausdorff measure). We look for the best shape and position for the supplementary Dirichlet region $\Sigma$ in order to maximize the first eigenvalue. The limit distribution of the optimal sets, as their prescribed length tends to infinity, is characterized via $\Gamma$-convergence of suitable functionals defined over varifolds: the use of varifolds, as opposed to probability measures, allows one to keep track of the local orientation of the optimal sets (which comply with the anisotropy of the problem), and not just of their limit distribution.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figure

On the Virtual Element Method for Topology Optimization on polygonal meshes: a numerical study

It is well known that the solution of topology optimization problems may be affected both by the geometric properties of the computational mesh, which can steer the minimization process towards local (and non-physical) minima, and by the accuracy of the method employed to discretize the underlying differential problem, which may not be able to correctly capture the physics of the problem. In light of the above remarks, in this paper we consider polygonal meshes and employ the virtual element method (VEM) to solve two classes of paradigmatic topology optimization problems, one governed by nearly-incompressible and compressible linear elasticity and the other by Stokes equations. Several numerical results show the virtues of our polygonal VEM based approach with respect to more standard methods

On the Scaling of the Cubic-to-Tetragonal Phase Transformation with Displacement Boundary Conditions

We provide (upper and lower) scaling bounds for a singular perturbation model for the cubic-to-tetragonal phase transformation with (partial) displacement boundary data. We illustrate that the order of lamination of the affine displacement data determines the complexity of the microstructure. As in \cite{RT21} we heavily exploit careful Fourier space localization methods in distinguishing between the different lamination orders in the data.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures, comments welcom

Immersogeometric cardiovascular fluid–structure interaction analysis with divergence-conforming B-splines

This paper uses a divergence-conforming B-spline fluid discretization to address the long-standing issue of poor mass conservation in immersed methods for computational fluid–structure interaction (FSI) that represent the influence of the structure as a forcing term in the fluid subproblem. We focus, in particular, on the immersogeometric method developed in our earlier work, analyze its convergence for linear model problems, then apply it to FSI analysis of heart valves, using divergence-conforming B-splines to discretize the fluid subproblem. Poor mass conservation can manifest as effective leakage of fluid through thin solid barriers. This leakage disrupts the qualitative behavior of FSI systems such as heart valves, which exist specifically to block flow. Divergence-conforming discretizations can enforce mass conservation exactly, avoiding this problem. To demonstrate the practical utility of immersogeometric FSI analysis with divergence-conforming B-splines, we use the methods described in this paper to construct and evaluate a computational model of an in vitro experiment that pumps water through an artificial valve