A FULLY DISCRETE GALERKIN SCHEME FOR A TWO-FOLD SADDLE POINT FORMULATION OF AN EXTERIOR NONLINEAR PROBLEM^*

Abstract

We analyze a fully discrete Galerkin method for the coupling of mixed finite elements and boundary elements as applied to an exterior nonlinear transmission problem arising in potential theory. We first show that the corresponding continuous formulation becomes a well posed two-fold saddle point problem. Our discrete approach uses Raviart-Thomas elements of lowest order and is based on simple quadrature formulas for the interior and boundary terms. We prove that, if the parameter of discretization is sufficiently small, the fully discrete Galerkin scheme is uniquely solvable and leads to optimal error estimates.

^*This research was partially supported by Fondecyt-Chile through the FONDAP Program in Applied Mathematics, by the Dirección de Investigación of the Universidad de Concepción through the Advanced Research Groups Program, and by D.G.E.S. through the project PB98-1564.

Keywords:

• Mixed-FEM
• BEM
• Coupling
• Dual-dual formulation
• Strong error estimate
• Mathematics Subject Classifications (1991):65J15; 65N30; 65N38; 65N12; 65N15

Acknowledgments

Notes

^*This research was partially supported by Fondecyt-Chile through the FONDAP Program in Applied Mathematics, by the Dirección de Investigación of the Universidad de Concepción through the Advanced Research Groups Program, and by D.G.E.S. through the project PB98-1564.