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.