Efficient treatment of stationary free boundary problems

In the present paper we consider the efficient treatment of free boundary problems by shape optimization. We reformulate the free boundary problem as shape optimization problem. A second order shape calculus enables us to analyze the shape problem under consideration and to prove convergence of a Ritz–Galerkin approximation of the shape. We show that Newton's method requires only access to the underlying state function on the boundary of the domain. We compute these data by boundary integral equations which are numerically solved by a fast wavelet Galerkin scheme. Numerical results prove that we succeeded in finding a fast and robust algorithm for solving the considered class of problems.