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On the Convergence of Adaptive Finite Element Methods
Author(s) -
Carstensen Carsten
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
pamm
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1617-7061
DOI - 10.1002/pamm.200410007
Subject(s) - a priori and a posteriori , finite element method , estimator , convergence (economics) , reduction (mathematics) , computer science , mathematical optimization , adaptive mesh refinement , nonlinear system , property (philosophy) , mathematics , algorithm , computational science , philosophy , statistics , physics , geometry , epistemology , quantum mechanics , economics , thermodynamics , economic growth
State of the art simulations in computational mechanics aim reliability and efficiency via adaptive finite element methods (AFEMs) with a posteriori error control. The a priori convergence of finite element methods is justified by the density property of the sequence of finite element spaces which essentially assumes a quasi‐uniform mesh‐refining. The advantage is guaranteed convergence for a large class of data and solutions; the disadvantage is a global mesh refinement everywhere accompanied by large computational costs. AFEMs automatically refine exclusively wherever the refinement indication suggests to do so and so violate the density property on purpose. Then, the a priori convergence of AFEMs is not guaranteed automatically and, in fact, crucially depends on algorithmic details. The advantage of AFEMs is a more effective mesh accompanied by smaller computational costs in many practical examples; the disadvantage is that the desirable error reduction property is not always guaranteed a priori. Efficient error estimators can justify a numerical approximation a posteriori and so achieve reliability. But it is not clear from the start that the adaptive mesh‐refinement will generate an accurate solution at all. This paper discusses particular versions of an AFEMs and their analyses for error reduction, energy reduction, and convergence results for linear and nonlinear problems. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)