Two families of $n$-rectangle nonconforming finite elements for sixth-order elliptic equations

In this paper, we propose two families of nonconforming finite elements on $n$-rectangle meshes of any dimension to solve the sixth-order elliptic equations. The unisolvent property and the approximation ability of the new finite element spaces are established. A new mechanism, called the exchange of sub-rectangles, for investigating the weak continuities of the proposed elements is discovered. With the help of some conforming relatives for the $H^3$ problems, we establish the quasi-optimal error estimate for the tri-harmonic equation in the broken $H^3$ norm of any dimension. The theoretical results are validated further by the numerical tests in both 2D and 3D situations.