A comparative study of sparse approximate inverse preconditioners

A number of recently proposed preconditioning techniques based on sparse ap proximate inverses are considered. A description of the preconditioners is given, and the results of an experimental comparison performed on one proce ssor of a Gray C98 vector computer using sparse matrices from a variety of applications are presented. A comparison with more standard preconditioning techniques, such as incomplete factorizations, is also included. Robustnes s, convergence rates, and implementation issues are discussed, (C) 1999 Els evier Science B.V. and IMACS. All rights reserved.