Cycle bases for the flexibility analysis of structures

Two methods are presented for the automatic selection of a cycle basis leading to a sparse flexibility matrix for the analysis of rigid‐jointed skeletal structures. The first method having a local approach forms a maximal set of admissible minimal cycles, while the second having a global approach constructs admissible minimal cycles on the ordered chords of a shortest route tree. A cycle ordering algorithm is also given to reduce the band width of the corresponding flexibility matrix.