An optimal shape design formulation for inhomogeneous dam problems

In this paper, the flow problem of incompressible liquid through an inhomogeneous porous medium (say dam), with permeability allowing parametrization of the free boundary by a graph of continuous unidimensional function, is considered, We propose a new formulation on an optimal shape design problem. We show the existence of a solution of the optimal shape design problem. The finite element method is used to obtain numerical results which show the efficiency of the proposed approach. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.