Analysis of multiscale mortar mixed approximation of nonlinear elliptic equations

A multiscale mortar mixed finite element method is established to approximate non-linear second order elliptic equations. The method is based on non-overlapping domain decomposition and mortar finite element methods. The existence and uniqueness of the approximation are demonstrated, and a priori L²-error estimates for the velocity and pressure are derived. An error bound for mortar pressure is proved. Convergence estimates of the mortar pressure are based on a linear interface formulation having the discrete-pressure dependent coefficient. Optimal order convergence is achieved on the fine scale by a proper choice of mortar space and polynomial degree of approximation. The quadratic convergence of the Newton–Raphson method is proved for the nonlinear algebraic system arising from the mortar mixed formulation of the problem. Numerical experiments are performed to support theoretic results.