A family of 3D continuously differentiable finite elements on tetrahedral grids (Q960300)

A family of continuously differentiable piecewise polynomials of degree 9 and higher, on general tetrahedral grids, is constructed, by simplifying and extending the \(P_6\) element of Zenisek. A mathematical justification and numerical tests are presented. The current computing power is still limited for the computation with 3D \(C_1\) finite elements in general. The construction here mainly serves the purposes of understanding and ensuring the approximation properties of \(C_1\) finite element spaces on tetrahedral grids. In particular, this constrution indicates that the 3D divergence-free \(C_0-P_k\) elements have full order of approximation for any degree k greater than or equal to 8.