In this paper, we study the perfect and the insulated conductivity problems with multiple inclusions imbedded in a bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n, n\ge 2$. For these two extreme cases of the conductivity problems, the gradients of their solutions may blow up as two inclusions approach each other. We establish the gradient estimates for the perfect conductivity problems and an upper bound of the gradients for the insulated conductivity problems in terms of the distances between any two closely spaced inclusions.
The insulated and perfect conductivity problems arising from high-contrast composite materials are considered in all dimensions. The solution and its gradient, respectively, represent the electric potential and field. The novelty of this paper lies in finding exact solutions for the insulated and perfect conductivity problems with concentric balls. Our results show that there appears no electric field concentration for the insulated conductivity problem, while the electric field for the perfect conductivity problem exhibits sharp singularity with respect to the small distance between interfaci…
We consider an insulated conductivity model with two neighboring inclusions of $m$-convex shapes in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ when $m\geq2$ and $d\geq3$. We establish the pointwise gradient estimates for the insulated conductivity problem and capture the gradient blow-up rate of order $\varepsilon^{-1/m+β}$ with $β=[-(d+m-3)+\sqrt{(d+m-3)^{2}+4(d-2)}]/(2m)\in(0,1/m)$, as the distance $\varepsilon$ between these two insulators tends to zero. In particular, the optimality of the blow-up rate is also demonstrated for a class of axisymmetric $m$-convex inclusions.
In this paper, the insulated conductivity model with two touching or close-to-touching inclusions is considered in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ with $d\geq3$. We establish the pointwise upper bounds on the gradient of the solution for the generalized $m$-convex inclusions under these two cases with $m\geq2$, which show that the singular behavior of the gradient in the thin gap between two inclusions is described by the first non-zero eigenvalue of an elliptic operator of divergence form on $\mathbb{S}^{d-2}$. Finally, the sharpness of the estimates is also proved for two touching axisymmetric insulators, …
We study the insulated conductivity problem with inclusions embedded in a bounded domain in $\mathbb R^n$, for $n \ge 3$. The gradient of solutions may blow up as $\varepsilon$, the distance between inclusions, approaches to $0$. We established in a recent paper optimal gradient estimates for a class of inclusions including balls. In this paper, we prove such gradient estimates for general strictly convex inclusions. Unlike the perfect conductivity problem, the estimates depend on the principal curvatures of the inclusions, and we show that these estimates are characterized by the first non-ze…
We study the insulated conductivity problem with inclusions embedded in a bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The gradient of solutions may blow up as $\varepsilon$, the distance between inclusions, approaches to $0$. An upper bound for the blow up rate was proved to be of order $\varepsilon^{-1/2}$. The upper bound was known to be sharp in dimension $n = 2$. However, whether this upper bound is sharp in dimension $n \ge 3$ has remained open. In this paper, we improve the upper bound in dimension $n \ge 3$ to be of order $\varepsilon^{-1/2 + β}$, for some $β> 0$.
We study the insulated conductivity problem with inclusions embedded in a bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The gradient of solutions may blow up as $\varepsilon$, the distance between inclusions, approaches to $0$. It was known that the optimal blow up rate in dimension $n = 2$ is of order $\varepsilon^{-1/2}$. It has recently been proved that in dimensions $n \ge 3$, an upper bound of the gradient is of order $\varepsilon^{-1/2 + β}$ for some $β> 0$. On the other hand, optimal values of $β$ have not been identified. In this paper, we prove that when the inclusions are balls, the optimal valu…
We consider the problem of neutral inclusions for two-dimensional conductivity and anti-plane elasticity. The neutral inclusion, when inserted in a matrix having a uniform field, does not disturb the field outside the inclusion. The inclusion consists of a core and a shell. We show that if the inclusion is neutral to two linearly independent fields, then the core and the shell are confocal ellipses.
This paper concerns the inverse problem of determining a planar conductivity inclusion. Our aim is to analytically recover from the generalized polarization tensors (GPTs), which can be obtained from exterior measurements, a homogeneous inclusion with arbitrary constant conductivity. The primary outcome of recovering a homogeneous inclusion is an inversion formula in terms of the GPTs for conformal mapping coefficients associated with the inclusion. To prove the formula, we establish matrix factorizations for the GPTs.
Using a distributed representation formula of the Gateaux derivative of the Dirichlet to Neumann map with respect to movements of a polygonal conductivity inclusion, [11], we extend the results obtained in [8] proving global Lipschitz stability for the determination of a polygonal conductivity inclusion embedded in a layered medium from knowledge of the Dirichlet to Neumann map.
We consider the problem of determining a polyhedral conductivity inclusion embedded in a homogeneous isotropic medium from boundary measurements. We prove global Lipschitz stability for the polyhedral inclusion from the local Dirichlet-to-Neumann map extending in a highly nontrivial way the results obtained in [18] and [19] in the two-dimensional case to the three-dimensional setting.
When inclusions with extreme conductivity (insulator or perfect conductor) are closely located, the gradient of the solution to the conductivity equation can be arbitrarily large. And computation of the gradient is extremely challenging due to its nature of blow-up in a narrow region in between inclusions. In this paper we characterize explicitly the singular term of the solution when two circular inclusions with extreme conductivities are adjacent. Moreover, we show through numerical computations that the characterization of the singular term can be used efficiently for computation of the gra…
A conductivity inclusion, inserted in a homogeneous background, induces a perturbation in the background potential. This perturbation admits a multipole expansion whose coefficients are the so-called generalized polarization tensors (GPTs). GPTs can be obtained from multistatic measurements. As a modification of GPTs, the Faber polynomial polarization tensors (FPTs) were recently introduced in two dimensions. In this study, we design two novel analytical non-iterative methods for recovering the shape of a simply connected inclusion from GPTs by employing the concept of FPTs. First, we derive a…
We study the stress concentration, which is the gradient of the solution, when two smooth inclusions are closely located in a possibly anisotropic medium. The governing equation may be degenerate of $p-$Laplace type, with $1<p \leq N$. We prove optimal $L^\infty$ estimates for the blow-up of the gradient of the solution as the distance between the inclusions tends to zero.
We detect an inclusion with infinite conductivity from boundary measurements represented by the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map for the conductivity equation. We use both the enclosure method and the probe method. We use the enclosure method to prove partial results when the underlying equation is the quasilinear $p$-Laplace equation. Further, we rigorously treat the forward problem for the partial differential equation $\operatorname{div}(σ\lvert\nabla u\rvert^{p-2}\nabla u)=0$ where the measurable conductivity $σ\colonΩ\to[0,\infty]$ is zero or infinity in large sets and $1<p<\infty$.
We consider the problem of recovering an isotropic conductivity outside some perfectly conducting or insulating inclusions from the interior measurement of the magnitude of one current density field $|J|$. We prove that the conductivity outside the inclusions, and the shape and position of the perfectly conducting and insulating inclusions are uniquely determined (except in an exceptional case) by the magnitude of the current generated by imposing a given boundary voltage. We have found an extension of the notion of admissibility to the case of possible presence of perfectly conducting and ins…
In the perfect conductivity problem, it is interesting to study whether the electric field can become arbitrarily large or not, in a narrow region between two adjacent perfectly conducting inclusions. In this paper, we show that the relative convexity of two adjacent inclusions plays a key role in the blowup analysis of the electric field and find some new phenomena. By energy method, we prove the boundedness of the gradient of the solution if two adjacent inclusions fail to be locally relatively strictly convex, namely, if the top and bottom boundaries of the narrow region are partially "flat…
Ellipsoidal characterization of neutral inclusions for imperfect bonding of high-conductivity type
Gunma University（群马大学）；Korea Institute for Advanced Study（韩国高等研究院）；Inha University（仁荷大学）；Zhejiang University of Technology（浙江工业大学）；Tohoku University（东北大学）
The size estimation problem in electrical impedance tomography is considered when the conductivity is a complex number and the body is two-dimensional. Upper and lower bounds on the volume fraction of the unknown inclusion embedded in the body are derived in terms of two pairs of voltage and current data measured on the boundary of the body. These bounds are derived using the translation method. We also provide numerical examples to show that these bounds are quite tight and stable under measurement noise.
When a convex perfectly conducting inclusion is closely spaced to the boundary of the matrix domain, a bigger convex domain containing the inclusion, the electric field can be arbitrary large. We establish both the pointwise upper bound and the lower bound of the gradient estimate for this perfect conductivity problem by using the energy method. These results give the optimal blow-up rates of electric field for conductors with arbitrary shape and in all dimensions. A particular case when a circular inclusion is close to the boundary of a circular matrix domain in dimension two is studied earli…
We derive bounds on the volume of an inclusion in a body in two or three dimensions when the conductivities of the inclusion and the surrounding body are complex and assumed to be known. The bounds are derived in terms of average values of the electric field, current, and certain products of the electric field and current. All of these average values are computed from a single electrical impedance tomography measurement of the voltage and current on the boundary of the body. Additionally, the bounds are tight in the sense that at least one of the bounds gives the exact volume of the inclusion …
The multifrequency electrical impedance tomography is considered in order to image a conductivity inclusion inside a homogeneous background medium by injecting one current. An original spectral decomposition of the solution of the forward conductivity problem is used to retrieve the Cauchy data corresponding to the extreme case of perfect conductor. Using results based on the unique continuation we then prove the uniqueness of multifrequency electrical impedance tomography and obtain rigorous stability estimates. Our results in this paper are quite surprising in inverse conductivity problem si…
We investigate the effective thermal conductivity of a two-phase composite with thermal resistance at the interface. The composite is obtained by introducing into an infinite homogeneous matrix a periodic set of inclusions of a different material. The diameter of each inclusion is assumed to be proportional to a positive real parameter ε. Under suitable assumptions, we show that the effective conductivity can be continued real analytically in the parameter εaround the degenerate value ε=0, in correspondence of which the inclusions collapse to points.
We study the perfect conductivity problem when two perfectly conducting inclusions are closely located to each other in an anisotropic background medium. We establish optimal upper and lower gradient bounds for the solution in any dimension which characterize the singular behavior of the electric field as the distance between the inclusions goes to zero.
In composite materials, the inclusions are frequently spaced very closely. The electric field concentrated in the narrow regions between two adjacent perfectly conducting inclusions will always become arbitrarily large. In this paper, we establish an asymptotic formula of the electric field in the zone between two spherical inclusions with different radii in three dimensions. An explicit blowup factor relying on radii is obtained, which also involves the digamma function and Euler-Mascheroni constant, and so the role of inclusions' radii played in such blowup analysis is identified.
In the perfect conductivity problem of composite material, the electric field concentrates in a narrow region in between two inclusions and always becomes arbitrarily large when the distance between inclusions tends to zero. To characterize such singular behavior, we capture the leading term of the gradient and reveal that the blow-up rates are determined by their relative convexity of the two adjacent inclusions. On the other hand, a blow-up factor, which is a linear functional of boundary data, is found to determine the blow-up will occur or not.
We deal with the problem of determining a time varying inclusion within a thermal conductor. In particular we study the continuous dependance of the inclusion from the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map. Under a priori regularity assumptions on the unknown defect we establish logarithmic stability estimates.
In high-contrast composite materials, the electric field concentration is a common phenomenon when two inclusions are close to touch. It is important from an engineering point of view to study the dependence of the electric field on the distance between two adjacent inclusions. In this paper, we derive the upper and lower bounds of the gradient of solutions to the conductivity problem where two perfectly conducting inclusions are located very close to each other. To be specific, we extend the known results of Bao-Li-Yin (ARMA 2009) in two folds: First, we weaken the smoothness of the inclusion…
We consider a large number of randomly dispersed spherical, identical, perfectly conducting inclusions (of infinite conductivity) in a bounded domain. The host medium's conductivity is finite and can be inhomogeneous. In the dilute limit, with some boundedness assumption on a large number (proportional to the global volume fraction raised to the power of -1/2) of marginal probability densities, we prove convergence in H^1 norm of the expectation of the solution of the steady state heat equation, to the solution of an effective medium problem, where the conductivity is given by the Clausius-Mos…
We investigate the homogenization of inclusions of infinite conductivity, randomly stationary distributed inside a homogeneous conducting medium. A now classical result by Zhikov shows that, under a logarithmic moment bound on the inter-particle distance, an effective model with finite homogeneous conductivity exists. Relying on ideas from network approximation, we provide a relaxed criterion ensuring homogenization. Several examples not covered by the previous theory are discussed.
In the perfect conductivity problem of composite material, the gradient of solutions can be arbitrarily large when two inclusions are located very close. To characterize the singular behavior of the gradient in the narrow region between two inclusions, we capture the leading term of the gradient and give a fairly sharp description of such asymptotics.
In this paper we derive rigorously the derivative of the Dirichlet to Neumann map and of the Neumann to Dirichlet map of the conductivity equation with respect to movements of vertices of triangular conductivity inclusions. We apply this result to formulate an optimization problem based on a shape derivative approach.
This work considers the inclusion detection problem of electrical impedance tomography with stochastic conductivities. It is shown that a conductivity anomaly with a random conductivity can be identified by applying the Factorization Method or the Monotonicity Method to the mean value of the corresponding Neumann-to-Dirichlet map provided that the anomaly has high enough contrast in the sense of expectation. The theoretical results are complemented by numerical examples in two spatial dimensions.
This paper extends the concept of generalized polarization tensors (GPTs), which was previously defined for inclusions with homogeneous conductivities, to inhomogeneous conductivity inclusions. We begin by giving two slightly different but equivalent definitions of the GPTs for inhomogeneous inclusions. We then show that, as in the homogeneous case, the GPTs are the basic building blocks for the far-field expansion of the voltage in the presence of the conductivity inclusion. Relating the GPTs to the Neumann-to-Dirichlet (NtD) map, it follows that the full knowledge of the GPTs allows unique d…
We investigate a generalization of Calderón's problem of recovering the conductivity coefficient in a conductivity equation from boundary measurements. As a model equation we consider the p-conductivity equation with p strictly between one and infinity, which reduces to the standard conductivity equation when p equals two, and to the p-Laplace equation when the conductivity is constant. The thesis consists of results on the direct problem, boundary determination and detecting inclusions. We formulate the equation as a variational problem also when the conductivity may be zero or infinity in la…
We consider well-posedness of the boundary value problem in presence of an inclusion with complex conductivity $k$. We first consider the transmission problem in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and characterize solvability of the problem in terms of the spectrum of the Neumann-Poincaré operator. We then deal with the boundary value problem and show that the solution is bounded in its $H^1$-norm uniformly in $k$ as long as $k$ is at some distance from a closed interval in the negative real axis. We then show with an estimate that the solution depends on $k$ in its $H^1$-norm Lipschitz continuously. We finally s…
We consider a gradient estimate for a conductivity problem whose inclusions are two neighboring insulators in three dimensions. When inclusions with an extreme conductivity (insulators or perfect conductors) are closely located, the gradient can be concentrated in between inclusions and then becomes arbitrarily large as the distance between inclusions approaches zero. The gradient estimate in between insulators in three dimensions has been regarded as a challenging problem, while the optimal blow-up rates in terms of the distance were successfully obtained for the other extreme conductivity pr…
The problem of determining nonlinear neutral inclusions in (electrical or thermal)conductivity is considered. Neutral inclusions, inserted in a matrix containing a uniform applied electric field, do not disturb the field outside the inclusions. The well known Hashin coated sphere construction is an example of a neutral inclusion. In this paper, we consider the problem of constructing neutral inclusions from nonlinear materials. In particular, we discuss assemblages of coated ellipsoids.
We consider an inverse boundary value problem for the heat equation with a nonsmooth coefficient of conductivity which models the displacement of a moving body inside a nonhomogeneous background. We prove the uniqueness of the moving inclusion from the knowledge of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator by using a dynamical probe method.
We consider the asymptotic behaviour of the effective thermal conductivity of a two-phase composite obtained by introducing into an infinite homogeneous matrix a periodic set of inclusions of a different material and of size proportional to a positive parameter ε. We are interested in the case of imperfect thermal contact at the two-phase interface. Under suitable assumptions, we show that the effective thermal conductivity can be continued real analytically in the parameter εaround the degenerate value ε=0, in correspondence of which the inclusions collapse to points. The results presented he…
We consider the problem of reconstructing of the boundary of an unknown inclusion together with its conductivity from the localized Dirichlet-to-Neumann map. We give an exact reconstruction procedure and apply the method to an inverse boundary value problem for the system of the equations in the theory of elasticity.
The ill-posedness of Calderón's inverse conductivity problem, responsible for the poor spatial resolution of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), has been an impetus for the development of hybrid imaging techniques, which compensate for this lack of resolution by coupling with a second type of physical wave, typically modeled by a hyperbolic PDE. Here we show how, using EIT data alone, to efficiently detect interior jumps and other singularities of the conductivity. Analysis of the complex geometrical optics solutions of Astala and Päivärinta [\emph{Ann. Math.}, {\bf 163} (2006)] in 2D makes…
