Minimization of inhomogeneous biharmonic eigenvalue problems

Biharmonic eigenvalue problems arise in the study of the mechanical vibration of plates. In this paper, we study the minimization of the first eigenvalue of a simplified model with clamped boundary conditions and Navier boundary conditions with respect to the coefficient functions which are of bang-bang type (the coefficient functions take only two different constant values). A rearrangement algorithm is proposed to find the optimal coefficient function based on the variational formula of the first eigenvalue. On various domains, such as square, circular and annular domains, the region where the optimal coefficient function takes the larger value may have different topologies. An asymptotic analysis is provided when two different constant values are close to each other. In addition, a symmetry breaking behavior is also observed numerically on annular domains.