Nonsmooth Variational Problems and Their Inequalities : Comparison Principles and Applications

This is the first research monograph to focus on variational inequalities as part of nonsmooth variational systems research. The authors discuss partial differential equations, variational equations, variational and hemivariational inequalities, and related topics. With a wealth of problems and techniques from nonlinear and nonsmooth analysis, this versatile text is an important reference for mathematicians working in analysis, partial differential equations, elasticity, materials science and mechanics applications, as well as for physicists and engineers. It can serve as a main or supplemental text for a variety of specialized nonlinear analysis courses.

This monograph focuses primarily on nonsmooth variational problems that arise from boundary value problems with nonsmooth data and/or nonsmooth constraints, such as is multivalued elliptic problems, variational inequalities, hemivariational inequalities, and their corresponding evolution problems.

The main purpose of this book is to provide a systematic and unified exposition of comparison principles based on a suitably extended sub-supersolution method. This method is an effective and flexible technique to obtain existence and comparison results of solutions. Also, it can be employed for the investigation of various qualitative properties, such as location, multiplicity and extremality of solutions. In the treatment of the problems under consideration a wide range of methods and techniques from nonlinear and nonsmooth analysis is applied, a brief outline of which has been provided in a preliminary chapter in order to make the book self-contained.

This text is an invaluable reference for researchers and graduate students in mathematics (functional analysis, partial differential equations, elasticity, applications in materials science and mechanics) as well as physicists and engineers.