Integral Equations

This book establishes the fundamentals of integral equations and considers some deep research aspects on integral equations of first and second kind, operator theory applied to integral equations, methods to solve some nonlinear integral equations, and singular integral equations, among other things. This is the first volume on this theme, hoping that other volumes of this important functional analysis theme and operator theory to formal functional equations will be realized in the future.

This book presents numerical methods and computational aspects for linear integral equations. Such equations occur in various areas of applied mathematics, physics, and engineering. The material covered in this book, though not exhaustive, offers useful techniques for solving a variety of problems. Historical information cover­ ing the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is available in fragments in Kantorovich and Krylov (1958), Anselone (1964), Mikhlin (1967), Lonseth (1977), Atkinson (1976), Baker (1978), Kondo (1991), and Brunner (1997). Integral equations are encountered in a variety of applications in many fields including continuum mechanics, potential theory, geophysics, electricity and mag­ netism, kinetic theory of gases, hereditary phenomena in physics and biology, renewal theory, quantum mechanics, radiation, optimization, optimal control sys­ tems, communication theory, mathematical economics, population genetics, queue­ ing theory, and medicine. Most of the boundary value problems involving differ­ ential equations can be converted into problems in integral equations, but there are certain problems which can be formulated only in terms of integral equations. A computational approach to the solution of integral equations is, therefore, an essential branch of scientific inquiry.

The present book deals with the finite-part singular integral equations, the multidimensional singular integral equations and the non-linear singular integral equations, which are currently used in many fields of engineering mechanics with applied character, like elasticity, plasticity, thermoelastoplasticity, viscoelasticity, viscoplasticity, fracture mechanics, structural analysis, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics and elastodynamics. These types of singular integral equations form the latest high technology on the solution of very important problems of solid and fluid mechanics and therefore special attention should be given by the reader of the present book, who is interested for the new technology of the twentieth-one century.