EFFICIENCY OF REFINEMENT PROCEDURES FOR THE P-VERSION OF THE ADAPTIVEFINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

Presents an efficiency study of different refinement procedures for th e p-version oi the adaptive finite element method in two-dimensional e lasticity problems. The refinement strategy, based on the estimated er ror in energy norm, attempts an optimal distribution of the nodeless d egrees of freedom associated with the basic approximation parameter of the order p of the hierarchical shape functions. This procedure is co mbined with appropriate matrix-handling techniques and equation solver s in order to achieve a solution of a given accuracy with the minimum computational resources in terms of computing time and storage. To thi s extent, convergence studies are performed with constant and variable adaptivity indices, with error estimators based on global and element al approaches and with domain decomposition matrix-handling techniques and the preconditioned conjugate gradient solver.