Stabilized mixed finite element methods for linear elasticity on simplicial grids in ℝn

Abstract

In this paper, we design two classes of stabilized mixed finite element methods for linear elasticity on simplicial grids. In the first class of elements, we use H (div , Ω S)-Pk and L2 (Ω ; ℝn)- Pk-1 to approximate the stress and displacement spaces, respectively, for 1 ≤ k ≤ n and employ a stabilization technique in terms of the jump of the discrete displacement over the edges/faces of the triangulation under consideration; in the second class of elements, we use H01 (Ω ; ℝn)- Pk to approximate the displacement space for 1 ≤ k ≤ n, and adopt the stabilization technique suggested by Brezzi, Fortin, and Marini [19]. We establish the discrete inf-sup conditions, and consequently present the a priori error analysis for them. The main ingredient for the analysis are two special interpolation operators, which can be constructed using a crucial H(div) bubble function space of polynomials on each element. The feature of these methods is the low number of global degrees of freedom in the lowest order case. We present some numerical results to demonstrate the theoretical estimates.