Using combinatorial designs to construct partial concentrators

Partial concentrators have been shown to be useful in the construction of various types of interconnecting networks. It is shown how a large class of combinatorial designs, which are well studied in the literature, can be used to construct partial concentrators and thus provide a direct link between the fields of combinatorial designs and switching networks. A construction efficiency factor called the cost ratio is introduced, and some lower bounds on the capacity of partial concentrators having certain characteristics are established. It is shown how to use various combinatorial designs to construct partial concentrators having these same characteristics and corresponding capacities