TOPOLOGICAL ASYMPTOTIC ANALYSIS OF THE KIRCHHOFF PLATE BENDING PROBLEM

The topological asymptotic analysis provides the sensitivity of a given shape functional with respect to an infinitesimal domain perturbation, like the insertion of holes, inclusions, cracks. In this work we present the calculation of the topological derivative for a class of shape functionals associated to the Kirchhoff plate bending problem, when a circular inclusion is introduced at an arbitrary point of the domain. According to the literature, the topological derivative has been fully developed for a wide range of second-order differential operators. Since we are dealing here with a forth-order operator, we perform a complete mathematical analysis of the problem.