Newton's Problem of the Body of Minimal Resistance in the Class of Convex Developable Functions

Abstract

We investigate the minimization of Newton's functional for the problem of the body of minimal resistance with maximal height M > 0 [4] in the class of convex developable functions defined in a disc. This class is a natural candidate to find a (non–radial) minimizer in accordance with the results of [9]. We prove that the minimizer in this class has a minimal set in the form of a regular polygon with n sides centered in the disc, and numerical experiments indicate that the natural number n > 2 is a non–decreasing function of M. The corresponding functions all achieve a lower value of the functional than the optimal radially symmetric function with the same height M.