Abstract: | Our aim in this article is to show how one can improve the numerical solution of singularity perturbed problems involving boundary layers. Incorporating the structures of boundary layers into finite element spaces can improve the accuracy of approximate solutions and result in significant simplifications. In this article we discuss convection‐diffusion equations in the two‐dimensional space with a homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition and a mixed boundary condition. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2005 |