An optimal triangulation for second-order elliptic problems (Q760196)

Let \(\Omega\) be a polygonal domain in \({\mathbb{R}}^ n\), \(\tau_ h\) an associated triangulation and \(u_ h\) the finite element solution of a well-posed second-order elliptic problem on \((\Omega,\tau_ h)\). Let \(M=\{M_ i\}^{p+q}_{i=1}\) be the set of nodes which defines the vertices of the triangulation \(\tau_ h:\) for each i, \(M_ i=\{x^ l_ i| 1\leq l\leq n\}\) in \({\mathbb{R}}^ n\). The object of this paper is to provide a computational tool to approximate the best set of positions \(\hat M\) of the nodes and hence the best triangulation \({\hat \tau}{}_ h\) which minimizes the solution error in the natural norm associated with the problem. The main result of this paper are theorems which provide explicit expressions for the partial derivatives of the associated energy functional with respect to the coordinates \(x^ l_ i\), \(1\leq l\leq n\), of each of the variable nodes \(M_ i\), \(i=1,...,p\).