Corrosion detection by identification of a nonlinear Robin boundary condition

Abstract

We study an inverse boundary value problem in corrosion detection. The model is based on a conductivity equation with nonlinear Robin boundary condition. We prove that the nonlinear Robin term can be identified locally from Cauchy data measurements on a subset of the boundary. A possible strategy for turning a local identification result into a global one is suggested, and a partial result is proved in this direction. The inversion method is an adaptation to this nonlinear Robin problem of a method originally developed for semilinear elliptic equations. The strategy is based on linearization and relies on parametrizing solutions of the nonlinear equation on solutions of the linearized equation.