Analysis of optimal finite-element meshes in 𝑅¹

Abstract

A theory of a posteriori estimates for the finite-element method was developed earlier by the authors. Based on this theory, for a two-point boundary value problem the existence of a unique optimal mesh distribution is proved and its properties analyzed. This mesh is characterized in terms of certain, easily computable local error indicators which in turn allow for a simple adaptive construction of the mesh and also permit the computation of a very effective a posteriori error bound. While the error estimates are asymptotic in nature, numerical experiments show the results to be excellent already for 10