Conforming and nonconforming harmonic finite elements

ABSTRACT

Instead of using the full polynomial space, a conforming and a nonconforming finite element methods are designed where only harmonic polynomials (a much smaller space) are employed in the computation. The conforming quadratic harmonic polynomial finite element is defined only on a special triangular grid. The nonconforming quadratic harmonic finite element is defined on general triangular grids. The optimal order of convergence is proved for both finite element methods, and confirmed by numerical computations. In addition, numerical comparisons with the standard conforming and nonconforming finite elements are presented.