An overview of the methods for finite element adaptive refinement and error estimation for linear elliptic problems is performed. An error estimator, based on nodal averaging of a gradient measure, suitable for linear, steady state, 2D and 3D stress and thermal analysis, is created and interfaced with the FE program FINITE/GP. An adaptive h-refinement method incorporating the above error estimator is implemented for two sample problems and results are presented which indicate that the method works. Conclusions are drawn concerning the usefulness of the method. A separate chapter gives an overview as well as experience gained with solvers for sparse matrices.