Identification of Cavities Inside Two-Dimensional Heterogeneous Isotropic Elastic Bodies

In this paper, we discuss the uniqueness in determining cavities (i.e., nonrectilinear cracks) in a heterogeneous isotropic elastic medium in two dimensions. Our main result asserts that there is at most one cavity in the elastic medium which yields the same surface displacements and stresses on an arbitarily small portion of the boundary. The boundaries of cavities are assumed to be piecewise smooth and admit edges where no net force is exerted. The key of the proof is the unique continuation for the isotropic Lamé system and geometric considerations. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.