The paper is concerned with existence results for positive solutions and maximal positive solutions of singular mixed boundary value problems. Nonlinearities h(t;x;y) in differential equations admit a time singularity at t=0 and/or at t=T and a strong singularity at x=0.

We study the existence and uniqueness of a positive solution to the problem $$u^{\text{'}\text{'}}=p\left(t\right)u+q(t,u)u+f\left(t\right);u\left(0\right)=u\left(\omega \right),u^{\text{'}}\left(0\right)=u^{\text{'}}\left(\omega \right)$$ with a super-linear nonlinearity and a nontrivial forcing term $f$. To prove our main results, we combine maximum and anti-maximum principles together with the lower/upper functions method. We also show a possible physical motivation for the study of such a kind of periodic problems and we compare the results obtained with the facts well known for the corresponding autonomous case.

We consider the classical nonlinear fourth-order two-point boundary value problem $$\left\{\begin{array}{c}{u}^{\left(4\right)}\left(t\right)=\lambda h\left(t\right)f(t,u\left(t\right),u^{\text{'}}\left(t\right),u^{\text{'}\text{'}}\left(t\right)),0<t<1,\hfill \\ u\left(0\right)=u^{\text{'}}\left(1\right)=u^{\text{'}\text{'}}\left(0\right)=u^{\text{'}\text{'}\text{'}}\left(1\right)=0.\hfill \end{array}\right.$$ In this problem, the nonlinear term $h\left(t\right)f(t,u\left(t\right),u^{\text{'}}\left(t\right),u^{\text{'}\text{'}}\left(t\right))$ contains the first and second derivatives of the unknown function, and the function $h\left(t\right)f(t,x,y,z)$ may be singular at $t=0$, $t=1$ and at $x=0$, $y=0$, $z=0$. By introducing suitable height functions and applying the fixed point theorem on the cone, we establish several local existence theorems on positive solutions and obtain the corresponding eigenvalue intervals.

This paper studies positive solutions and eigenvalue intervals of a nonlinear third-order two-point boundary value problem. The nonlinear term is allowed to be singular with respect to both the time and space variables. By constructing a proper cone and applying the Guo-Krasnosel'skii fixed point theorem, the eigenvalue intervals for which there exist one, two, three or infinitely many positive solutions are obtained.