Duality based error control for the Signorini problem

Abstract

In this paper we study the a posteriori bounds for a conforming piecewise linear finite element approximation of the Signorini problem. We prove new rigorous a posteriori estimates of residual type in $L^{p}$, for $p \in (4,\infty)$ in two spatial dimensions. This new analysis treats the positive and negative parts of the discretisation error separately, requiring a novel sign- and bound-preserving interpolant, which is shown to have optimal approximation properties. The estimates rely on the sharp dual stability results on the problem in $W^{2,(4 - \varepsilon)/3}$ for any $\varepsilon \ll 1$. We summarise extensive numerical experiments aimed at testing the robustness of the estimator to validate the theory.