A new minimization principle for the Poisson equation using two variables – the solution and the gradient of the solution – is introduced. This principle allows us to use any conforming finite element spaces for both variables, where the finite element spaces do not need to satisfy the so-called inf–sup condition. A numerical example demonstrates the superiority of this approach.

The mathematical model for semiconductor devices in three space dimensions are numerically discretized. The system consists of three quasi-linear partial differential equations about three physical variables: the electrostatic potential, the electron concentration and the hole concentration. We use standard mixed finite element method to approximate the elliptic electrostatic potential equation. For the two convection-dominated concentration equations, a characteristics-mixed finite element method is presented. The scheme is locally conservative. The optimal L2-norm error estimates are derived by the aid of a post-processing step. Finally, numerical experiments are presented to validate the theoretical analysis.

This paper aims at a general guideline to obtain a posteriori error estimates for the finite element error control in computational partial differential equations. In the abstract setting of mixed formulations, a generalised formulation of the corresponding residuals is proposed which then allows for the unified estimation of the respective dual norms. Notably, this can be done with an approach which is applicable in the same way to conforming, nonconforming and mixed discretisations. Subsequently, the unified approach is applied to various model problems. In particular, we consider the Laplace, Stokes, Navier-Lamé, and the semi-discrete eddy current equations.

In this paper, we present a superconvergence result for the mixed finite element approximations of general second order elliptic eigenvalue problems. It is known that a superconvergence result has been given by Durán et al. [Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 9 (1999) 1165–1178] and Gardini [ESAIM: M2AN 43 (2009) 853–865] for the lowest order Raviart-Thomas approximation of Laplace eigenvalue problems. In this work, we introduce a new way to derive the superconvergence of general second order elliptic eigenvalue problems by general mixed finite element methods which have the commuting diagram property. Some numerical experiments are given to confirm the theoretical analysis.

Liquid crystal elastomers present features not found in ordinary elastic materials, such as semi-soft elasticity and the related stripe domain phenomenon. In this paper, the two-dimensional Bladon–Terentjev–Warner model and the one-constant Oseen–Frank energy expression are combined to study the liquid crystal elastomer. We also impose two material constraints, the incompressibility of the elastomer and the unit director norm of the liquid crystal. We prove existence of minimiser of the energy for the proposed model. Next we formulate the discrete model, and also prove that it possesses a minimiser of the energy. The inf-sup values of the discrete linearised system are then related to the smallest singular values of certain matrices. Next the existence and uniqueness of the Lagrange multipliers associated with the two material constraints are proved under the assumption that the inf-sup conditions hold. Finally numerical simulations of the clamped-pulling experiment are presented for elastomer samples with aspect ratio 1 or 3. The semi-soft elasticity is successfully recovered in both cases. The stripe domain phenomenon, however, is not observed, which might be due to the relative coarse mesh employed in the numerical experiment. Possible improvements are discussed that might lead to the recovery of the stripe domain phenomenon.

This paper is concerned with the unilateral contact problem in linear elasticity. We define two a posteriori error estimators of residual type to evaluate the accuracy of the mixed finite element approximation of the contact problem.Upper and lower bounds of the discretization error are proved forboth estimators and several computations are performed toillustrate the theoretical results.

We consider the lowest-order Raviart–Thomas mixed finite elementmethod for second-order elliptic problems on simplicial meshes intwo and three space dimensions. This method produces saddle-pointproblems for scalar and flux unknowns. We show how to easily andlocally eliminate the flux unknowns, which implies the equivalencebetween this method and a particular multi-point finite volumescheme, without any approximate numerical integration. The matrixof the final linear system is sparse, positive definite for alarge class of problems, but in general nonsymmetric. We next showthat these ideas also apply to mixed and upwind-mixed finiteelement discretizations of nonlinear parabolicconvection–diffusion–reaction problems. Besides the theoreticalrelationship between the two methods, the results allow forimportant computational savings in the mixed finite elementmethod, which we finally illustrate on a set of numericalexperiments.

We present the numerical analysis on the Poisson problem of two mixed Petrov-Galerkin finite volume schemes for equations in divergence form $\mathop{\rm div}\nolimits\varphi(u,\nabla u)=f$ . The first scheme, which has been introduced in [CITE], is a generalization in two dimensions of Keller's box-scheme. The second scheme is the dual of the first one, and is a cell-centeredscheme for u and the flux φ. For the first scheme, the two trial finite element spaces are the nonconforming space of Crouzeix-Raviartfor the primal unknown u and the div-conformingspace of Raviart-Thomas for the flux φ. The two test spaces are the functions constant per cell both for the conservative and for the fluxequations.We prove an optimal second order error estimate for the box scheme and we emphasize the link between this scheme and the post-processing of Arnold and Brezzi of the classical mixed method.

One of the main tools in the proof of residual-based a posteriori error estimates is a quasi-interpolation operator due to Clément. We modify this operator in the setting of a partition of unitywith the effect that the approximation error has a local average zero.This results in a new residual-based a posteriori error estimate with a volume contribution which is smaller than in the standard estimate.For an elliptic model problem, we discuss applications to conforming, nonconforming and mixed finite element methods.

Error estimates for the mixed finite element solution of4th order elliptic problems with variable coefficients, which, in the particular case of aniso-/ortho-/isotropic plate bending problems, gives a direct, simultaneous approximation to bending moment tensorfield $\Psi= (\psi_{ij})_{1 \le i,j \le 2}$ and displacement field 'u', have been developed considering the combined effect of boundary approximation and numerical integration.