Nonsmooth energy functions govern phenomena which occur frequently in nature and in all areas of life. They constitute a fascinating subject in mathematics and permit the rational understanding of yet unsolved or partially solved questions in mechanics, engineering and economics. This is the first book to provide a complete and rigorous presentation of the quasidifferentiability approach to nonconvex, possibly nonsmooth, energy functions, of the derivation and study of the corresponding variational expressions in mechanics, engineering and economics, and of their numerical treatment. The new variational formulations derived are illustrated by many interesting numerical problems. The techniques presented will permit the reader to check any solution obtained by other heuristic techniques for nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. A civil, mechanical or aeronautical engineer can find in the book the only existing mathematically sound technique for the formulation and study of nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. Audience: The book will be of interest to pure and applied mathematicians, physicists, researchers in mechanics, civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineers, structural analysts and software developers. It is also suitable for graduate courses in nonlinear mechanics, nonsmooth analysis, applied optimization, control, calculus of variations and computational mechanics.
This volume collects the expanded notes of four series of lectures given on the occasion of the CIME course on Nonlinear Optimization held in Cetraro, Italy, from July 1 to 7, 2007. The Nonlinear Optimization problem of main concern here is the problem n of determining a vector of decision variables x ? R that minimizes (ma- n mizes) an objective function f(·): R ? R,when x is restricted to belong n to some feasible setF? R , usually described by a set of equality and - n n m equality constraints: F = {x ? R : h(x)=0,h(·): R ? R ; g(x) ? 0, n p g(·): R ? R }; of course it is intended that at least one of the functions f,h,g is nonlinear. Although the problem canbe stated in verysimpleterms, its solution may result very di?cult due to the analytical properties of the functions involved and/or to the number n,m,p of variables and constraints. On the other hand, the problem has been recognized to be of main relevance in engineering, economics, and other applied sciences, so that a great lot of e?ort has been devoted to develop methods and algorithms able to solve the problem even in its more di?cult and large instances. The lectures have been given by eminent scholars, who contributed to a great extent to the development of Nonlinear Optimization theory, methods and algorithms. Namely, they are: – Professor Immanuel M.
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