Abstract
A saturating flow through a network satisfies the condition that if it uses an edge then it uses its whole capacity. We show that the problem to verify whether there is a non-zero saturating flow in a given network is strongly NP-complete. This problem restricted to edge series-parallel networks remains NP-complete, but there is a pseudopolynomial time algorithm solving it. Restricted still farther to s-t outerplanar networks the problem is polynomially solvable.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
W.W. Bein, P. Brucker, and A. Tamir, Minimum cost flow algorithms for series-parallel networks, Discr. Appl. Math. 10 (1985), 117–124.
M. Chrobak, and K. Diks, Network flows in outerplanar networks, submitted.
S. Even, A, Itai, and A. Shamir, On the complexity of timetable and multicomodity flow problems, SIAM J. Computing 5 (1976), 691–703.
S. Even, and R.E. Tarjan, Network flow and testing graph connectivity, SIAM J. Computing 4 (1975), 399–404.
M.R. Garey, and D.S. Johnson, "Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the Theory of NP-Completeness," W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1979.
T.C. Hu, and M.T. Shing, Multiterminal flows in outerplanar networks, J. Algorithms 4 (1983), 241–261.
A. Itai, Two-commodity flow, Rep. No 93, Dept. of Comput. Sci., Technion, Haifa, Israel.
E.L. Lawler, "Combinatorial Optimization: Networks and Matroids," Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1976.
C.H. Papadimitriou, and K. Steiglitz, "Combinatorial Optimization: Algorithms and Complexity," Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New York, 1982.
S. Sahni, Computationally related problems, SIAM J. Computing 3 (1974), 262–279.
M.M. Syslo, Characterizations of outerplanar graphs, Disc. Math. 26 (1979), 47–53.
R.E. Tarjan, "Data Structures and Network Algorithms," SIAM, Philadelfia, Pennsylvania, 1983.
J. Valdes, R.E. Tarjan, and E.L. Lawler, The recognition of series-parallel networks, SIAM J. Computing 11 (1982), 298–313.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1987 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Chlebus, B.S., Chrobak, M., Diks, K. (1987). Saturating flows in networks. In: Budach, L., Bukharajev, R.G., Lupanov, O.B. (eds) Fundamentals of Computation Theory. FCT 1987. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 278. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-18740-5_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-18740-5_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-18740-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48138-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive