Class notes for 2006/02/14

Vector-valued finite elements

The simplest way to solve vector-valued problems is explained step-20.

In some situations, in particular if the vector-valued finite element is composed of scalar elements (for example in linear elasticity when the displacement in each coordinate direction is computed, and each vector coordinate is based on a Q(k) element independent of the other coordinates), then one can do a few optimizations. However, the situation becomes more complicated. step-8 explains the situation in that case.