Advances in the Mechanics of Plates and Shells

The optimal control of flexible structures is an active area of research. The main body of work in this area is concerned with the control of time-dependent displacements and stresses, and assumes linear elastic conditions, namely linear elastic material behavior and small defor- tion. See, e. g. , [1]–[3], the collections of papers [4, 5], and references therein. On the other hand, in the present...