Minimal cycle basis of graph products for the force method of frame analysis.

For an efficient force method of frame analysis, the formation of localized self-equilibrating systems is an important issue. Such systems can be constructed on minimal cycle basis of the graph model of the structure. In this paper, algorithms are presented for the formation of minimal cycle bases of graph products corresponding to sparse cycle adjacency matrices, leading to the formation of highly sparse flexibility matrices. The algorithms presented employ concepts from three graph products namely Cartesian, strong Cartesian and lexicographic products. Though the formulation for the first two products exist, however, efficient implementations are made in this paper. The formulation for the generation of minimal cycle basis is extended to the lexicographic product. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]