Penalty method for variational inequalities (Q1356116)

The author studied the problem of the existence of a solution of a class of variational inequalities using the penalty method. The results are proved in an informal way. It should be noted that almost all results are known for more general classes of variational inequalities, see for example, \textit{N. Kikuchi} and \textit{J. T. Oden} [``Contact problems in elasticity: A study of variational inequalities and finite element methods'' (1988; Zbl 0685.73002)] and \textit{M. A. Noor} [Int. J. Eng. Sci. 26, No. 10, 1043-1051 (1988; Zbl 0671.73017)]. Finally, it has been shown that the error estimate for the finite element approximation of the penalized variational inequality is of order \((h^{1/2})\), whereas it is known [see \textit{N. Kikuchi} and \textit{J. T. Oden} (loc. cit.)], is of order \(h\) in the energy norm. Consequently, it is clear that the proposed penalty technique is not efficient.