Numerical and experimental characterisation of tensegrity for structural applications
Tensegrity structures are made up of bars in compression within a set of tensioned cables. All kinds of structures can be built using this concept: footbridges, towers, roofs or domes. In addition to their impressive architectural appearance, these structures are lightweight, offer variable rigidity and can be built and deployed quickly. However, the geometry of these structures depends on the external loads applied to them. This is due to their large number of cables, which means that we have to make non-linear calculations. In addition, to increase the rigidity of these structures, they have to be prestressed by tensioning cables or extending bars.
This geometric non-linearity and prestressing create a lack of confidence in these structures on the part of engineers. Very few commercial software packages address these two issues. The project I'm working on involves perfecting and validating the numerical tool designed during previous work at UCLouvain (in particular Jonas Feron's thesis). This is a plug-in for the Rhino-Grasshopper software developed in Python and C# denoted as MUSCLE.
