A posteriori error estimation in the finite element method

Abstract

The work broadly consists of two parts. In the first part we construct a framework for analyzing and developing a posteriori error estimators for use in the finite element solution of elliptic partial differential equations which have smooth solutions. The analysis makes use of complementary variational principles and the superconvergence phenomenon associated with the finite element method. The second part generalizes these results to the important case when the solution of the boundary value problem contains singularities. It is shown how the classical techniques may be easily modified to perform satisfactorily for the singular case.