We prove $hp$-optimal error estimates for interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods (IPDG) for the biharmonic problem with homogeneous essential boundary conditions. We consider tensor product-type meshes in two and three dimensions, and triangular meshes in two dimensions. An essential ingredient in the analysis is the construction of a global $H^2$ piecewise polynomial approximants with $hp$-optimal approximation properties over the given meshes. The $hp$-optimality is also discussed for $\mathcal C^0$-IPDG in two and three dimensions, and the stream formulation of the Stokes problem in two dimensions. Numerical experiments validate the theoretical predictions and reveal that $p$-suboptimality occurs in presence of singular essential boundary conditions.

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