Method for constructing meshes adapting to the solution of boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations of the second and fourth orders (Q843691)

The present paper deals with the numerical solution of fourth- and second-order boundary value problems with variable step-size finite element methods. The authors operate with a Galerkin approach and piecewise cubic Hermite polynomial ansatz functions. The main impetus of the manuscript is the construction of locally refined and recoarsed adaptive grids. The idea is to analyze the influence of additional test points or the drop of mesh points on the actual value on the variational functional which provides the basis for the generation of the adaptive grid in the next step. Moreover, numerical computations are presented to display the efficacy of the introduced method.