Stability Conditions for General Tensegrity with Rigid Bodies
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 149, Issue 8
Abstract
This study develops stability conditions for general tensegrity regarding the three stability criteria (e.g., prestress stability, general stability, and super stability) based on an energy approach. The coupling relations of specific nodal degrees of freedom caused by the rigid bodies are described by a set of constraint functions and incorporated into the potential energy function by the Lagrangian multiplier method. Stiffness matrices of general tensegrity systems are derived from the augmented potential energy function. It shows that the stability of general tensegrity can be evaluated through the stiffness matrices expressed in the constrained motion space generated by the constraint functions. Elegant formulations are developed for the evaluation of the three types of stability conditions for general tensegrity systems. Moreover, it turns out that the formulations developed in this study will degenerate into those for the stability analysis of classic tensegrity if no rigid bodies exist in the system, which indicates that the proposed approach is a general framework for the stability analysis of any type of tensegrity systems.
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Data Availability Statement
All the data used in the study have been provided in the paper.
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52108182 and 52178175), Key Project of Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. LZ23E080003), Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2021M702867), and funding from Zhejiang Provincial Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. ZJ2021009).
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 8, 2022
Accepted: Mar 8, 2023
Published online: May 17, 2023
Published in print: Aug 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Oct 17, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Continuum mechanics
- Coupling
- Deformation (mechanics)
- Degrees of freedom
- Displacement (mechanics)
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Energy methods
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Lagrangian functions
- Mathematical functions
- Mathematics
- Matrix (mathematics)
- Rigid body dynamics
- Solid mechanics
- Stiffening
- Structural behavior
- Structural engineering
- Structural mechanics
- Structural members
- Structural systems
- Tension members
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