Guaranteed local error estimation for finite element solutions of boundary value problems

Abstract

This paper considers the finite element solution of the boundary value problem of Poisson’s equation and proposes a guaranteed local error estimation based on the hypercircle method. Compared to the existing literature on qualitative error estimation, the proposed error estimation provides an explicit and sharp bound for the approximation error in the subdomain of interest, and its efficiency can be enhanced by further utilizing a non-uniform mesh. Such a result is applicable to problems without H2-regularity, since it only utilizes the first order derivative of the solution. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated by numerical experiments for both convex and non-convex 2D domains with uniform or non-uniform meshes.