Variational Inequalities and Flow in Porous Media

These notes are the contents of a one semester graduate course which taught at Brown University during the academic year 1981-1982. They are mainly concerned with regularity theory for obstacle problems, and with the dam problem, which, in the rectangular case, is one of the most in­ teresting applications of Variational Inequalities with an obstacle. Very little background is needed to read these notes. The main re­ sults of functional analysis which are used here are recalled in the text. The …