Related papers: Rigidity of generic random tensegrity structures
Functional structures from across the engineered and biological world combine rigid elements such as bones and columns with flexible ones such as cables, fibers and membranes. These structures are known loosely as tensegrities, since these…
Tensegrity structures are special architectures made by floating compressed struts kept together by a continuous system of tensed cables. The multiplicity of shapes that tensegrity structures can assume and their intrinsic capability to be…
A tensegrity is a structure made from cables, struts and stiff bars. A $d$-dimensional tensegirty is universally rigid if it is rigid in any dimension $d'$ with $d'\geq d$. The celebrated super stability condition due to Connelly gives a…
Animals can finely modulate their leg stiffness to interact with complex terrains and absorb sudden shocks. In feats like leaping and sprinting, animals demonstrate a sophisticated interplay of opposing muscle pairs that actively modulate…
This paper proposes a unified approach for dynamic modeling and simulations of general tensegrity structures with rigid bars and rigid bodies of arbitrary shapes. The natural coordinates are adopted as a non-minimal description in terms of…
Tensegrity structures have been extensively studied over the last years due to their potential applications in modern engineering like metamaterials, deployable structures, planetary lander modules, etc. Many of the form-finding methods…
Many biological tissues feature a heterogeneous network of fibers whose tensile and bending rigidity contribute substantially to these tissues' elastic properties. Rigidity percolation has emerged as a important paradigm for relating these…
Homogenization of the incremental response of grids made up of preloaded elastic rods leads to homogeneous effective continua which may suffer macroscopic instability, occurring at the same time in both the grid and the effective continuum.…
The inclusion of rigid elements into elastic composites may lead to superior mechanical properties for the equivalent elastic continuum, such as, for instance, extreme auxeticity. To allow full exploitation of these properties, a tool for…
Truss structures composed of members that work exclusively in tension or in compression appear in several problems of science and engineering, e.g., in the study of the resisting mechanisms of masonry structures, as well as in the design of…
This paper investigates the use of the most fundamental elements; cables for tension and bars for compression, in the search for the most efficient bridges. Stable arrangements of these elements are called tensegrity structures. We show…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
Two classes of non-linear elastic materials are derived via two-dimensional homogenization. These materials are equivalent to a periodic grid of axially-deformable and axially-preloaded structural elements, subject to incremental…
The network approach became a widely used tool to understand the behaviour of complex systems in the last decade. We start from a short description of structural rigidity theory. A detailed account on the combinatorial rigidity analysis of…
A discrete tensegrity framework can be thought of as a graph in Euclidean n-space where each edge is of one of three types: an edge with a fixed length (bar) or an edge with an upper (cable) or lower (strut) bound on its length. Roth and…
We extend the mathematical theory of rigidity of frameworks (graphs embedded in $d$-dimensional space) to consider nonlocal rigidity and flexibility properties. We provide conditions on a framework under which (I) as the framework flexes…
This paper presents a novel application of tensegrity systems as lightweight and noninvasive braces for seismically resistant structures. The analyzed braces consist of D-bar systems equipped with shape memory alloy cables with superelastic…
Rigidity regulates the integrity and function of many physical and biological systems. This is the first of two papers on the origin of rigidity, wherein we propose that "energetic rigidity," in which all non-trivial deformations raise the…
Living organisms intertwine soft (e.g., muscle) and hard (e.g., bones) materials, giving them an intrinsic flexibility and resiliency often lacking in conventional rigid robots. The emerging field of soft robotics seeks to harness these…
In this paper, we present a light-weight, multi- axis compliant tenegrity joint that is biologically inspired by the human elbow. This tensegrity elbow actuates by shortening and lengthening cable in a method inspired by muscular actuation…