Adaptive finite elements for exterior domain problems

DOI10.1007/S002110050376MaRDI QIDQ1272817zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Eberhard Bänsch, Willy Dörfler

Publication date 19 December 1999

Published in Numerische Mathematik (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1007/s002110050376

zbMATH Keywords

adaptive mesh generationconvergenceDirichlet problemserror estimationfinite elementsinfinite domainnumerical resultsPoisson's equationtruncated exterior domain

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Laplace operator, Helmholtz equation (reduced wave equation), Poisson equation (35J05) Stability and convergence of numerical methods for boundary value problems involving PDEs (65N12) Error bounds for boundary value problems involving PDEs (65N15) Finite element, Rayleigh-Ritz and Galerkin methods for boundary value problems involving PDEs (65N30) Mesh generation, refinement, and adaptive methods for boundary value problems involving PDEs (65N50)

Review text

The authors consider Dirichlet problems for Poisson's equation on the infinite domain exterior to a bounded, closed, simply-connected domain surrounding the origin in either two- or three-dimensional space. The boundary condition at infinity requires only that the solution approach zero at infinity; however, it is well known that under mild conditions the solution decays rapidly. This rapid decay allows the solution to be approximated using finite elements on the exterior domain truncated at large radius and with homogeneous Dirichlet condition at the far boundary. An estimate for the norm of the difference between the discrete and exact solutions on the truncated domain is proved. This estimate is then used as part of an a posteriori error estimation to identify the proper mesh density and truncation radius of a revised mesh in order to meet a specified solution error criterion. This estimation procedure in turn provides the basis for a mesh adaptation procedure. The mesh adaptation procedure involves constructing meshes that become progressively finer at the boundary nearer the origin and also cover progressively larger regions of space. Further, the mesh elements at large radius themselves are large, so that the number of discrete degrees of freedom grows as error tolerance shrinks at about the same growth rate as the usual estimates for bounded domains. The mesh adaptation procedure is presented fully and can be implemented in existing computer programs for finite domains. Numerical results are presented illustrating optimal convergence rates for linear and quadratic elements in two and three dimensions.

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Cited in

(3)

• Error estimates and adaptive finite element methods. A bibliography (1990--2000)
• An adaptive coupling method for exterior anisotropic elliptic problems
• Artificial boundary conditions for the Stokes and Navier-Stokes equations in domains that are layer-like at infinity

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