An adaptive time stepping method with efficient error control for second-order evolution problems

This work is concerned with time stepping finite element methods for abstract second order evolution problems. We derive optimal order a posteriori error estimates and a posteriori nodal superconvergence error estimates using the energy approach and the duality argument. With the help of the a posteriori error estimator developed in this work, we will further propose an adaptive time stepping strategy. A number of numerical experiments are performed to illustrate the reliability and efficiency of the a posteriori error estimates and to assess the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive time stepping method.