Application and Analysis of Cables in Light Structures

This paper presents a brief introduction on recent application of cables in light structures. Prestressibility is a common characteristic of the cables in various light structures. Some structures need prestress to keep stability, such as tensegrity structures and cable domes. For these structures, a process of form-finding is needed to determine the geometrical configurations of them. The form-finding of cable structures is modeled as constrained optimization problems, and direct search methods are proposed to solve these problems. The structural response of cable structures is usually geometrically nonlinear, and sometime even mechanism displacements are involved. A general theory so-called nonlinear force method for analysis of the structural systems with mechanism displacements is proposed. Shape adjustment in the construction of cable structures or in the control of adoptable cable structures are investigated. Optimization models and numerical algorithms are proposed to optimize the control process.