optimal design

An elastic cloak hides a hole (or an inhomogeneity) from elastic fields. In this paper, a formulation of the optimal design of elastic cloaks based on the adjoint state method, in which the balance of linear momentum is enforced as a constraint, is presented. The design parameters are the elastic moduli of the cloak, and the objective function is a measure of the distance between the solutions in the physical and in the virtual bodies. Both the elastic medium and the cloak are assumed to be made of isotropic linear elastic materials.

I've got interested, since I am going with about 10 of my students to Paris for the Euromech conference I am coorganizing in July, by the design of the Eiffel Tower.  Eiffel was a great engineer, and indeed his shape of the tower apparently comes from his ingenious idea of  balancing weigth and wind pressure so that there is little need of foundations.  WIKIPEDIA has an account of this design idea, and the resulting integro-differential equation.

I am going to Modena on Monday to talk to my collegues in the Millechili lab (MilleChili means 1000Kg in italian)