On computing the pressure by thep version of the finite element method for Stokes problem

Summary This paper introduces and analyzes two ways of extracting the hydrostatic pressure when solving Stokes problem using thep version of the finite element method. When one uses a localH¹ projection, we show that optimal rates of convergence for the pressure approximation is achieved. When the pressure is not inH¹. or the value of the pressure is only needed at a few points, one may extract the pressure pointwise using e.g. a single layer potential recovery. Negative, zero, and higher norm estimates for the Stokes velocity are derived within the framework of thep version of the F.E.M.Partially supported by ONR grants N00014-87-K-0427 and N00014-90-J-1238