h-p adaptivity with hierarchic hexahedral elements

This paper presents an implementation of the h-p adaptive version of the finite element method in 3D problems using hierarchic hexahedral elements. The process is driven by an error estimator based on the complete local residual. The algorithm to refine the mesh and the method to deal with nonconforming meshes are explained. Also, a technique to build the basis functions during the process is proposed. Two examples shows the efficacy of this work.