Using curved meshes to derive a priori error estimates for a linear elasticity problem with Robin boundary conditions

Abstract

This work concerns the numerical analysis of the linear elasticity problem with a Robin boundary condition on a smooth domain. A finite element discretization is presented using high-order curved meshes in order to accurately discretize the physical domain. The primary objective is to conduct a detailed error analysis for the elasticity problem using the vector lift operator, which maps vector-valued functions from the mesh domain to the physical domain. Error estimates are established, both in terms of the finite element approximation error and the geometric error, respectively associated to the finite element degree and to the mesh order. These theoretical a priori error estimates are validated by numerical experiments in 2D and 3D.