A 3-STEP RENUMBERING PROCEDURE FOR HIGH-ORDER FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS

An efficient renumbering method for high-order finite element models i s presented. The method can be used to reduce the profile and wavefron t of a coefficient matrix arising in high-order finite element computa tion. The method indirectly performs node renumbering and involves thr ee main steps. In the first step, nodes at corners of the elements are numbered using an existing renumbering algorithm. In the second step, elements are numbered in an ascending order of their least new corner node numbers. Finally, based on the new element numbers, both corner and non-corner nodes are renumbered using an algorithm that simulates the node elimination procedure in a frontal solution method. The metho d is compared to the algorithms that directly perform node renumbering . The numerical results indicate that the three-step algorithm present ed here is an order of magnitude faster and the resulting renumbering produces excellent profile and wavefront characteristics of the coeffi cient matrix. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.