On ordering elements for a frontal solver

The efficiency of the frontal method for the solution of finite-element pro blems depends on the order in which the elements are assembled. This paper looks at using variants of Sloan's algorithm to reorder the elements. Both direct and indirect reordering algorithms are considered and are used in co mbination with spectral orderings. Numerical experiments are performed on a range of practical problems and, on the basis of the results, a hybrid Slo an element resequencing algorithm is proposed for use with a frontal algori thm. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.