Analysis of the element-free Galerkin method with penalty for general second-order elliptic problems (Q2180728)

The application of the penalty method to the element-free Galerkin EFG method is explored. For a general second-order elliptic problem with mixed boundary conditions, continuous variational and penalized variational formulas are derived and analyzed. A priori estimates of the penalty method are obtained independently on the Dirichlet boundary and in the problem domain under proper regularity assumptions. The existence and uniqueness of the weak solution are shown for the penalized general second-order elliptic problem. Error estimations of the EFG method in the \(L^2\) and \(H^1\) norms are derived for Dirichlet and mixed boundaries, respectively. Theoretical results are confirmed by numerical examples; for a Poisson problem with pure Dirichlet boundary condition, a general second-order elliptic problem with mixed boundary conditions, a Poisson problem on a semicircular domain, a high gradient problem.