On the construction of stable curvilinear pp version elements for mixed formulations of elasticity and Stokes flow

Summary. The use of mixed finite element methods is well-established in the numerical approximation of the problem of nearly incompressible elasticity, and its limit, Stokes flow. The question of stability over curved elements for such methods is of particular significance in the p version, where, since the element size remains fixed, exact representation of the curved boundary by (large) elements is often used. We identify a mixed element which we show to be optimally stable in both p and h refinement over curvilinear meshes. We prove optimal p version (up to ) and h version (p = 2, 3) convergence for our element, and illustrate its optimality through numerical experiments. Received August 25, 1998 / Revised version received February 16, 1999 / Published online April 20, 2000 –? Springer-Verlag 2000