Error analysis of Nitsche’s mortar method

Abstract

Optimal a priori and a posteriori error estimates are derived for three variants of Nitsche’s mortar finite elements. The analysis is based on the equivalence of Nitsche’s method and the stabilised mixed method. Nitsche’s method is defined so that it is robust with respect to large jumps in the material and mesh parameters over the interface. Numerical results demonstrate the robustness of the a posteriori error estimators.