Guaranteed error bounds for finite element approximations of noncoercive elliptic problems and their applications (Q930708)

Guaranteed a priori and a posteriori error estimates of finite element approximations for not necessarily coercive linear second-order Dirichlet problems are discussed. Here, `guaranteed' means that we can get the error bounds in which all constants included are explicitly given or represented as a numerically computable form. Using the invertibility condition of the associated elliptic operator, guaranteed a priori and a posteriori error estimates are formulated. Such estimates play essential roles in the numerical verification of solutions for nonlinear elliptic problems. Several numerical examples for both one and two-dimensional problems are presented to see the actual effectiveness of the method. Although all the sample problems are linear, some of them are obtained by linearization of nonlinear problems, and in addition an example with discontinuous coefficient is included. Thus we can expect the application of the present results to concrete and meaningful nonlinear problems.