Discrete Mathematical Structures by Pearson

Topics in Graph Theory 10-53

10.18 NETWORK FLOWS

Network systems arise in transportation, transmission, communication and flow of commodities

such as oil, gas, water, etc. The other commodity may be automobiles, manufactured goods,

kilowatts of electricity, and something intangible such as information and messages. The network

of roads, railways, telephone lines, interconnection of factories, warehouses, and retail outlets

involve flow of commodities. All these physical systems can be visualized as a connected

weighted digraph. We can think of the edges of digraph representing roads, railways tracks, power

lines and pipe-lines, that is, channels ...