Mortar element methods for parabolic problems

In this article a standard mortar finite element method and a mortar element method with Lagrange multiplier are used for spatial discretization of a class of parabolic initial‐boundary value problems. Optimal error estimates in L^∞(L²) and L^∞(H¹)‐norms for semidiscrete methods for both the cases are established. The key feature that we have adopted here is to introduce a modified elliptic projection. In the standard mortar element method, a completely discrete scheme using backward Euler scheme is discussed and optimal error estimates are derived. The results of numerical experiments support the theoretical results obtained in this article. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2008