A structural aerospace engineer is inspecting a circular optical sensor viewing port integrated into the titanium forward bulkhead of a crew exploration vehicle. Due to aerodynamic friction during atmospheric re-entry, uneven thermal expansion deforms the window mounting bezel along an implicit circle:
where and are coordinate displacements in centimeters. A stress concentration sensor focuses on the perimeter point .
- Compute the first derivative using implicit differentiation.
- Differentiate a second time with respect to using the Quotient Rule to establish an expression for the second derivative .
- Back-substitute and simplify the numerator using the original circle constraint equation ().
- Evaluate at the physical inspection point , and determine whether the window bezel is concave up or concave down.