On the ellipticity condition for model-parameter dependent mixed formulations

When establishing and analyzing model-parameter dependent mixed formulations, it is common to consider required ellipticity and inf-sup conditions for the continuous and discrete problems. However, in the modeling of some important categories of problems, like in the analysis of plates and shells, the ellipticity condition usually considered does not naturally hold, and the inf-sup condition can only be stated in an abstract form and can hardly be evaluated analytically. In this paper we present a new and practical ellipticity condition which together with the inf-sup condition guarantees that (i) when the model parameter goes to zero, the limit problem solution is uniformly approached, and (ii) an optimal finite element discretization has been established (for the interpolations used). In practice, a numerical test might be performed to see whether the proposed ellipticity condition is satisfied.