Synthesis of tensegrity structures of desired shape using constrained minimization

Abstract

There are two types of problems in tensegrity design: (i) form-finding when the tensegrity shape is not specified and (ii) synthesis when the tensegrity shape is specified. We address synthesis problems in this paper. We first formulated and solved an optimization problem to synthesize tensegrity structures of specified shape when the connectivity of the elements (bars and cables) is known a priori. We minimize the error in force-balance at the vertices in the desired equilibrium configuration by using force densities as the design variables. This constrained minimization problem enabled us to synthesize a known asymmetric tensegrity arch and a hitherto unknown tensegrity of biconcave shape similar to that of a healthy human red blood cell. We also extend the above method to a reduced order optimization problem for synthesizing complex symmetric tensegrity structures. Using this approach, we synthesized a truncated dodecahedron inside another truncated dodecahedron to emulate a nucleus inside a cell. We use a restricted global structure on an already available two-step mixed integer linear programming (MILP) topology optimization formulation to synthesize a non-convex tensegrity structure when only the coordinates are provided. We further improve this two-step MILP to a single-step MILP. We also present static analysis of a tensegrity structure by minimizing the potential energy with unilateral constraints on the lengths of the cables that cannot take compressive loads. Furthermore, we use this method to synthesize a tensegrity table of desired height and area under a predefined load. The prototypes of three synthesized tensegrities were made and validated.