A posteriori error control for finite element approximations of elliptic eigenvalue problems

We develop a new approach to a posteriori error estimation for Galerkin finite element approximations of symmetric and nonsymmetric elliptic eigenvalue problems. The idea is to embed the eigenvalue approximation into the general framework of Galerkin methods for nonlinear variational equations. In this context residual-based a posteriori error representations are available with explicitly given remainder terms. The careful evaluation of these error representations for the concrete situation of an eigenvalue problem results in a posteriori error estimates for the approximations of eigenvalues as well as eigenfunctions. These suggest local error indicators that are used in the mesh refinement process.     

Equilibrated residual error estimator for edge elements

Reliable a posteriori error estimates without generic constants can be obtained by a comparison of the finite element solution with a feasible function for the dual problem. A cheap computation of such functions via equilibration is well known for scalar equations of second order. We simplify and modify the equilibration such that it can be applied to the curl-curl equation and edge elements. The construction is more involved for edge elements since the equilibration has to be performed on subsets with different dimensions. For this reason, Raviart-Thomas elements are extended in the spirit of distributions.

     

A dynamic mesh adaptation method for magnetohydrodynamics problems

A dynamic adaptation method is used to numerically solve the MHD equations. The basic idea behind the method is to use an arbitrary nonstationary coordinate system for which the numerical procedure and the mesh refinement mechanism are formulated as a unified differential model. Numerical examples of multidimensional MHD flows on dynamic adaptive meshes are given to illustrate the method.     

A posteriori error estimations for mixed finite-element approximations to the Navier-Stokes equations

A posteriori estimates for mixed finite element discretizations of the Navier-Stokes equations are derived. We show that the task of estimating the error in the evolutionary Navier-Stokes equations can be reduced to the estimation of the error in a steady Stokes problem. As a consequence, any available procedure to estimate the error in a Stokes problem can be used to estimate the error in the nonlinear evolutionary problem. A practical procedure to estimate the error based on the so-called postprocessed approximation is also considered. Both the semidiscrete (in space) and the fully discrete cases are analyzed. Some numerical experiments are provided.     

Anisotropic mesh adaptation for numerical solution of boundary value problems

We present an efficient mesh adaptation algorithm that can be successfully applied to numerical solutions of a wide range of 2D problems of physics and engineering described by partial differential equations. We are interested in the numerical solution of a general boundary value problem discretized on triangular grids. We formulate a necessary condition for properties of the triangulation on which the discretization error is below the prescribed tolerance and control this necessary condition by the interpolation error. For a sufficiently smooth function, we recall the strategy how to construct the mesh on which the interpolation error is below the prescribed tolerance. Solving the boundary value problem we apply this strategy to the smoothed approximate solution. The novelty of the method lies in the smoothing procedure that, followed by the anisotropic mesh adaptation (AMA) algorithm, leads to the significant improvement of numerical results. We apply AMA to the numerical solution of an elliptic equation where the exact solution is known and demonstrate practical aspects of the adaptation procedure: how to control the ratio between the longest and the shortest edge of the triangulation and how to control the transition of the coarsest part of the mesh to the finest one if the two length scales of all the triangles are clearly different. An example of the use of AMA for the physically relevant numerical simulation of a geometrically challenging industrial problem (inviscid transonic flow around NACA0012 profile) is presented. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2004.     

Functional a posteriori error estimates for discontinuous Galerkin approximations of elliptic problems

In this article, we develop functional a posteriori error estimates for discontinuous Galerkin (DG) approximations of elliptic boundary‐value problems. These estimates are based on a certain projection of DG approximations to the respective energy space and functional a posteriori estimates for conforming approximations developed by S. Repin (see e.g., Math Comp 69 (2000) 481–500). On these grounds, we derive two‐sided guaranteed and computable bounds for the errors in “broken” energy norms. A series of numerical examples presented confirm the efficiency of the estimates. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2009     

A posteriori error estimates of stabilized finite volume method for the Stokes equations

In this work, the residual‐type posteriori error estimates of stabilized finite volume method are studied for the steady Stokes problem based on two local Gauss integrations. By using the residuals between the source term and numerical solutions, the computable global upper and local lower bounds for the errors of velocity in H¹ norm and pressure in L² norm are derived. Furthermore, a global upper bound of u ? u_h in L²‐norm is also derived. Finally, some numerical experiments are provided to verify the performances of the established error estimators. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A posteriori error estimation for variational problems with uniformly convex functionals

The objective of this paper is to introduce a general scheme for deriving a posteriori error estimates by using duality theory of the calculus of variations. We consider variational problems of the form

where is a convex lower semicontinuous functional, is a uniformly convex functional, and are reflexive Banach spaces, and is a bounded linear operator. We show that the main classes of a posteriori error estimates known in the literature follow from the duality error estimate obtained and, thus, can be justified via the duality theory.

     

A posteriori error estimation and error control for finite element approximations of the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations

We present an approach to estimate numerical errors in finite element approximations of the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations along with a strategy to control these errors. The error estimators and the error control procedure are based on the residuals of the Navier–Stokes equations, which are shown to be comparable to error components in the velocity variable. The present methodology applies to the estimation of numerical errors due to the spatial discretization only. Its performance is demonstrated for two-dimensional channel flows past a cylinder in the periodic regime.     

A posteriori error estimators for the steady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

A residual-based a posteriori error estimator for finite element discretizations of the steady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in the primitive variable formulation is discussed. Though the estimator is similar to existing ones, an alternate derivation is presented, involving an abstract estimate that may prove of some intrinsic value. The estimator is particularized to Hood–Taylor and modified Hood–Taylor finite elements and proved to be a global upper bound (up to a positive multiplicative constant) of the true error. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance of the resulting mesh adaptation process. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 13: 561–574, 1997     

A note on the residual type a posteriori error estimates for finite element eigenpairs of nonsymmetric elliptic eigenvalue problems

In this paper we study the residual type a posteriori error estimates for general elliptic (not necessarily symmetric) eigenvalue problems. We present estimates for approximations of semisimple eigenvalues and associated eigenvectors. In particular, we obtain the following new results: 1) An error representation formula which we use to reduce the analysis of the eigenvalue problem to the analysis of the associated source problem; 2) A local lower bound for the error of an approximate finite element eigenfunction in a neighborhood of a given mesh element T.     

A posteriori error estimates for finite element approximations to the wave equation with discontinuous coefficients

We derive residual‐based a posteriori error estimates of finite element method for linear wave equation with discontinuous coefficients in a two‐dimensional convex polygonal domain. A posteriori error estimates for both the space‐discrete case and for implicit fully discrete scheme are discussed in L^∞(L²) norm. The main ingredients used in deriving a posteriori estimates are new Clément type interpolation estimates in conjunction with appropriate adaption of the elliptic reconstruction technique of continuous and discrete solutions. We use only an energy argument to establish a posteriori error estimates with optimal order convergence in the L^∞(L²) norm.     

Lower bounds of error estimates for singular perturbation problems with Jacobi-Spectral approximations

With weighted orthogonal Jacobi polynomials, we study spectral approximations for singular perturbation problems on an interval. The singular parameters of the model are included in the basis functions, and then its stiff matrix is diagonal. Considering the estimations for weighted orthogonal coefficients, a special technique is proposed to investigate the a posteriori error estimates. In view of the difficulty of a posteriori error estimates for spectral approximations, we employ a truncation projection to study lower bounds for the models. Specially, we present the lower bounds of a posteriori error estimates with two different weighted norms in details.     

Modified equation based mesh adaptation algorithm for evolutionary scalar partial differential equations

It is well known that on uniform mesh classical higher order schemes for evolutionary problems yield an oscillatory approximation of the solution containing discontinuity or boundary layers. In this article, an entirely new approach for constructing locally adaptive mesh is given to compute nonoscillatory solution by representative “second” order schemes. This is done using modified equation analysis and a notion of data dependent stability of schemes to identify the solution regions for local mesh adaptation. The proposed algorithm is applied on scalar problems to compute the solution with discontinuity or boundary layer. Presented numerical results show underlying second order schemes approximate discontinuities and boundary layers without spurious oscillations.     

A posteriori error analysis of the discontinuous finite element methods for first order hyperbolic problems

In this paper, we consider the a posteriori error analysis of discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods for the steady and nonsteady first order hyperbolic problems with inflow boundary conditions. We establish several residual-based a posteriori error estimators which provide global upper bounds and a local lower bound on the error. Further, for nonsteady problem, we construct a fully discrete discontinuous finite element scheme and derive the a posteriori error estimators which yield global upper bound on the error in time and space. Our a posteriori error analysis is based on the mesh-dependent a priori estimates for the first order hyperbolic problems. These a posteriori error analysis results can be applied to develop the adaptive discontinuous finite element methods.     

A posteriori error estimates of functional type for variational problems related to generalized Newtonian fluids

The paper is focused on functional type a posteriori estimates of the difference between the exact solution of a variational problem modelling certain types of generalized Newtonian fluids and any function from the admissible energy class. In contrast to the a posteriori estimates obtained for example by the finite element method our estimates do not contain any local (mesh dependent) constants, and therefore they can be used regardless of the way in which an approximation has been constructed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Posteriori Error Estimates for the Approximations of the Stresses in the Hencky Plasticity Problem

In this article, we derive a posteriori error estimates for the Hencky plasticity problem. These estimates are formulated in terms of the stresses and present guaranteed and computable bounds of the difference between the exact stress field and any approximation of it from the energy space of the dual variational problem. They consist of quantities that can be considered as penalties for the violations of the equilibrium equations, the yield condition and the constitutive relations that must hold for the exact stresses and strains. It is proved that the upper bound tends to zero for any sequence of stresses that tends to the exact solution of the Haar–Karman variational problem. An important ingredient of our analysis is a collection of Poincaré type inequalities involving the L ¹ norms of the tensors of small deformation. Estimates of this form are not new, however we will present computable upper bounds for the constants being involved even for rather complicated domains.     

Recovery type a posteriori estimates and superconvergence for nonconforming FEM of eigenvalue problems

The main goal of this paper is to present recovery type a posteriori error estimators and superconvergence for the nonconforming finite element eigenvalue approximation of self-adjoint elliptic equations by projection methods. Based on the superconvergence results of nonconforming finite element for the eigenfunction we derive superconvergence and recovery type a posteriori error estimates of the eigenvalue. The results are based on some regularity assumption for the elliptic problem and are applicable to the lowest order nonconforming finite element approximations of self-adjoint elliptic eigenvalue problems with quasi-regular partitions. Therefore, the results of this paper can be employed to provide useful a posteriori error estimators in practical computing under unstructured meshes.     

Local mesh refinement for the discretization of Neumann boundary control problems on polyhedra

This paper deals with optimal control problems constrained by linear elliptic partial differential equations. The case where the right‐hand side of the Neumann boundary is controlled, is studied. The variational discretization concept for these problems is applied, and discretization error estimates are derived. On polyhedral domains, one has to deal with edge and corner singularities, which reduce the convergence rate of the discrete solutions, that is, one cannot expect convergence order two for linear finite elements on quasi‐uniform meshes in general. As a remedy, a local mesh refinement strategy is presented, and a priori bounds for the refinement parameters are derived such that convergence with optimal rate is guaranteed. As a by‐product, finite element error estimates in the H¹(Ω)‐norm, L²(Ω)‐norm and L²(Γ)‐norm for the boundary value problem are obtained, where the latter one turned out to be the main challenge. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A posteriori error estimates of spectral method for optimal control problems governed by parabolic equations

In this paper,we investigate the Legendre Galerkin spectral approximation of quadratic optimal control problems governed by parabolic equations.A spectral approximation scheme for the parabolic optimal control problem is presented.We obtain a posteriori error estimates of the approximated solutions for both the state and the control.