Error estimation and adaptive mesh generation in the 2D and 3D finite element method

In order to obtain good results from the finite element method the mesh used should suit the behaviour of the field. The adaptive mesh generation offers an automatic way to generate meshes fitting the problem. In this paper the effectiveness of the adaptive mesh generation is measured by comparing the error in the field solution of uniformly and adaptively generated meshes both for the 2D and the 3D case.