PHYSICAL MATHEMATICS SEMINAR



TITLE:		OPTIMAL MECHANISMS
 


SPEAKER:	MICHAEL P. BRENNER
		Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences
		Harvard University



ABSTRACT:   

The talk will describe some recent theoretical and experimental work on the optimal 
design of mechanisms. Although there is a long history of mathematical approaches to 
optimal design problems, most of the work focuses on designing a single state of a 
system to optimize some target function. We will describe several examples involving 
the design of a mechanism: the examples will include (a) the optimal design of a mems 
relay switch; (b) the optimal design of the actuation mechanism for the switch; and (c) 
finding the shape of a nozzle with fixed cross sectional area which ejects the smallest 
sized droplet under adiabatic forcing.



TUESDAY, MAY 13, 2003  
2:30 pm
Building 2, Room 338

Refreshments will be served at 3:30 PM in Room 2-349


Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Mathematics
Cambridge, MA  02139