Optimal identification of cavities in the Generalized Plane Stress problem in linear elasticity

Abstract

For the Generalized Plane Stress (GPS) problem in linear elasticity, we obtain an optimal stability estimate of logarithmic type for the inverse problem of determining smooth cavities inside a thin isotropic cylinder from a single boundary measurement of traction and displacement. The result is obtained by reformulating the GPS problem as a Kirchhoff–Love plate-like problem in terms of the Airy function, and by using the strong unique continuation at the boundary for a Kirchhoff–Love plate operator under homogeneous Dirichlet conditions, which has recently been obtained in [G. Alessandrini et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 231 (2019)].