This book is intended to be both a thorough introduction to contemporary research in optimization theory for elliptic systems with its numerous applications and a textbook at the undergraduate and graduate level for courses in pure or applied mathematics or in continuum mechanics. Various processes of modern technology and production are described by el liptic partial differential equations. Optimization of these processes reduces to op timization problems for elliptic systems. The numerical solution of such problems is associated with the solution of the following questions. 1. The setting of the optimization problem ensuring the existence of a solution on a set of admissible controls, which is a subset of some infinite-dimensional vector space. 2. Reduction of the infinite-dimensional optimization problem to a sequence of finite-dimensional problems such that the solutions of the finite-dimensional problems converge, in a sense, to the solution of the infinite-dimensional problem. 3. Numerical solution of the finite-dimensional problems."

This unique book presents a profound mathematical analysis of general optimization problems for elliptic systems, which are then applied to a great number of optimization problems in mechanics and technology. Accessible and self-contained, it is suitable as a textbook for graduate courses on optimization of elliptic systems.