CRITERIA TO ACHIEVE NEARLY OPTIMAL MESHES IN THE H-ADAPTIVE FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

Five Adaptive Modification Strategies (AMSs) are studied as means to o btain nearly optimal meshes using an adaptive finite element modelling system based on the h-version of the FEM. These strategies include th e method traditionally seem in the literature(1) as well as four addit ional methods. The five strategies are tested over five numerical exam ples, one of them producing convergence oscillations in one example. T he principal characteristic of our system is that it permits the user to control certain parameters of the adaptive process, which contribut es to an improvement in the results.