A Nitsche extended finite element method for incompressible elasticity with discontinuous modulus of elasticity

In this note we propose a finite element method for incompressible (or compressible) elasticity problems with discontinuous modulus of elasticity (or, if compressible, Poisson's ratio). The problem is written on mixed form using P-1-continuous displacements and elementwise P-0 pressures, leading to the possibility of eliminating the pressure beforehand in the compressible case. In the incompressible case, the method is augmented by a stabilization term, penalizing the pressure jumps. We show a priori error estimates under certain regularity hypothesis. In particular we prove that if the exact solution is sufficiently smooth in each subdomain then the convergence order is optimal. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.