PATCH RECOVERY BASED ON SUPERCONVERGENT DERIVATIVES AND EQUILIBRIUM

In this paper a postprocessing technique is developed for determining first-order derivatives (fluxes, stresses) at nodal points based on derivatives in superconvergent points. It is an extension of the superconvergent patch recovery technique presented by Zienkiewicz and Zhu. In contrast to that technique all flux or stress components are interpolated at the same time, coupled by equilibrium equations at the superconvergent points. The equilibrium equations and use of one order higher degree of interpolation polynomials of stress give a dramatic decrease in error of recovered derivatives even at boundaries.