Special Session 91: Variational methods for evolution equations
Contents
Quasistationary elastoplasticity provides a simple mathematical model problem for general rate-independent evolution problems. The numerical approximation is typically based on an implicit discretization in time and an appropriate finite element discretization in space. We discuss in this talk various a priori and a posteriori error estimates that control the temporal and spatial discretization errors. A new contribution is a quasi-optimal error estimate for the temporal discretization error under minimal regularity assumptions which follows from a reformulation of the model problem as a subdifferential flow.