A new method of constructing effective level structure and corresponding nodal numbering scheme are proposed for the bandwidth minimization of the finite element stiffness matrix.
The bandwidth minimization algorithm proposed utilizes the graph theory for measuring the adjacency of nodes or elements and the general level structures. General level structures are constructed from root level structure by way of modifying a portion of levels. A number of examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency and reliability of the algorithm. From the examples the proposed method yields much smaller bandwidths, for most of cases, than Cuthill-Mackee algorithm and the Gibbs-Poole-Stockmeyer algorithm though it takes longer CPU time.
