A sharp Korn's inequality for piecewise $H^1$ space and its application

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit Korn's inequality for the piecewise $H^1$ space based on general polygonal or polyhedral decompositions of the domain. Our Korn's inequality is expressed with minimal jump terms. These minimal jump terms are identified by characterizing the restriction of rigid body mode to edge/face of the partitions. Such minimal jump conditions are shown to be sharp for achieving the Korn's inequality as well. The sharpness of our result and explicitly given minimal conditions can be used to test whether any given finite element spaces satisfy Korn's inequality, immediately as well as to build or modify nonconforming finite elements for Korn's inequality to hold.