Abstract: | We consider the numerical approximation of singularly perturbed elliptic boundary value problems over nonsmooth domains. We use a decomposition of the solution that contains a smooth part, a corner layer part and a boundary layer part. Explicit guidelines for choosing mesh‐degree combinations are given that yield finite element spaces with robust approximation properties. In particular, we construct an hp finite element space that approximates all components uniformly, at a near exponential rate. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 15: 63–89, 1999 |