We propose here a generalization to the elastodynamic equations of the space–time mesh refinement technique introduced in [Raffinement de maillage spatio-temporel pour les eŽquations de Maxwell, Ph.D. thesis, Université de Dauphine, Paris, 2000] for the Maxwell's equations. This method uses a discrete energy conservation to ensure the stability. The method is presented in a variational way applicable to other type of hyperbolic systems. Several numerical experiments are provided to show the efficiency of this approach.