An Optimal Size of a Rigid Thin Stiffener Reinforcing an Elastic Two-Dimensional Body on the Outer Edge

The equilibrium problem for a two-dimensional body with a crack is studied. We suppose that the body consists of two parts: an elastic part and a rigid thin stiffener on the outer edge of the body. Inequality-type boundary conditions are prescribed at the crack faces providing a non-penetration between the crack faces. For a family of variational problems, dependence of their solutions on the length of the thin rigid stiffener is investigated. It is shown that there exists a solution of an optimal control problem. For this problem, the cost functional is defined by a continuous functional on a solution space, while the length parameter serves as a control parameter.