No label defined (Q4030685)

The authors deal with the finite element approximation of an elliptic operator on a non-convex domain composed of rectangles using a graded mesh. The total number of mesh points of the graded meshes is still of the order \(O(h^{-2})\), i.e., it is of the same order as for a uniform mesh of size \(h\), and the size of the largest element is of order \(O(h)\). Since the meshes introduced herein may not satisfy the quasi-uniformity condition the following questions arise: Does the finite element method converge in this case? Do the standard error estimates obtained for usual quasi-uniform meshes hold in this case? The answers are found to be positive. Besides the standard convergence estimates, the authors also show the super convergence estimate and as their main result an error expansion for the interior nodes, by which approximation accuracy is increased to \(O(h^{4-\varepsilon})\) through an extrapolation method. Three interpolant estimates are established which yield three theorems: Earlier \textit{H. Blum} and \textit{R. Rannacher} [Finite element eigenvalue computation on domains with reentrant corners using Richardson extrapolation, J. Comput. Math., 8, No. 4, 321-332 (1990; Zbl 0719.65077)] have dealt with a similar case and used Richardson extrapolation but the convergence rate obtained by them is \(O(h^ 2)\) for linear elements with locally uniform meshes.