Dual finite element analysis of three-dimensional axisymmetric elliptic problems. Part I

This paper consists of two parts in which we propose two types of pure dual finite element (FE) models of a three-dimensional (3D) axisymmetric elliptic problem with mixed boundary conditions. Using cylindrical coordinates and weighted Sobolev spaces, a dual 3D problem is transformed into a 2D problem and finite element spaces of divergence-free vector functions are constructed with the help of a stream function. In part I of the paper a priori and a posteriori error estimates are derived for the first type of the FE model. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.