On a class of general variational inequalities

The study of variational inequalities was initiated by the Italian Mathematician, Guido Stampacchia in the early 60's. Besides several other important problems of Physics and Engineering this theory has been applied to solve the problem of Elasticity with unilateral constraints. In this paper we introduce a new class of variational inequalities and study the existence and uniqueness of its solution. Error estimates, convergence of approximate solution and the penalty method are also discussed. (author). 25 refs