An anisotropic adaptive method for the numerical approximation of orthogonal maps (Q2075947)

The paper deals with the so-called orthogonal maps which are the solutions of the analytical model of paper-folding, also called origami problem, in which a paper is folded along creases lines, but neither stretched nor torn. Mathematically, the problem reads: find \(u : \Omega\to \mathbb{R}^2 \) such that \(\nabla u \in O(2)\) in \(\Omega\), \(u = g\) on \(\partial \Omega\), where \(O(2)\) is the set of orthogonal \(2 \times 2\) matrix-valued functions, and \(g\) is a given, sufficiently smooth, piecewise linear, function. The problem is reformulated as the minimization problem and it is discretized by the finite element method. The presence of the creased lines makes this problem attractive for the anisotropic mesh adaptation where long and thin mesh elements admit to achieve the prescribed tolerance using a small number of degrees of freedom. An adaptive algorithm is proposed and its performance is demonstrated by several numerical examples.