Experimental investigation of the softeningstiffening response of tensegrity prisms under compressive loading Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The present paper is concerned with the formulation of new assembly methods of bi-material tensegrity prisms, and the experimental characterization of the compressive response of such structures. The presented assembly techniques are easy to implement, including a string-first approach in the case of ordinary tensegrity prisms, and a base-first approach in the case of systems equipped with rigid bases. The experimental section shows that the compressive response of tensegrity prisms switches from stiffening to softening under large displacements, in dependence on the current values of suitable geometric and prestress variables. Future research lines regarding the mechanical modeling of tensegrity prisms and their use as building blocks of nonlinear periodic lattices and acoustic metamaterials are discussed. 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

published proceedings

  • Composite Structures

author list (cited authors)

  • Amendola, A., Carpentieri, G., de Oliveira, M., Skelton, R. E., & Fraternali, F.

citation count

  • 85

complete list of authors

  • Amendola, A||Carpentieri, G||de Oliveira, M||Skelton, RE||Fraternali, F

publication date

  • November 2014