Shape design sensitivity analysis of plates and plane elastic solids under unilateral constraints

The local dependence of static response and eigenvalues on the shape of plates and plane elastic solids is characterized. The so-called material derivative method is used. The shape sensitivity analysis includes, besides linear problems, nonlinear problems with unilateral conditions, e.g., the frictionless contact problem for an elastic body on a rigid foundation. The results on shape sensitivity analysis can be used to obtain expressions for variations of integral functionals that arise in structural optimization problems.