MAY 2017

Analysis of tensegrity structures with

XC

XC is a finite element program oriented

to civil engineering. It is conceived as
Open Source Software since we are de-
veloping it on the strong foundations of
OpenSees and making heavy use of other
OSS like Python, VTK and CGAL.
This case study deals with the analysis
of several 2D and 3D tensegrity units.
In all cases, the results issued by the fi-
nite element model in XC compares very
well with those forthcoming from sym-
bolic analysis.
A 3D-corotational truss formulation with
XC appears to be an effective technique
for solving the geometrically nonlinear
problem that arises in a tensegrity struc-
ture.

Ana Ortega, Luis C. Pérez Tato

Introduction very attractive, e.g. for deployable structures. Their light

Tensegrity structures are usually defined as structural weight and aesthetic value add them special interest for
systems that maintain their shape by using a discontin- the structural design.
uous set of compressive elements (struts) that are con-
nected to a continuous net of prestressed tensile elements Form-finding methods for tensegrity
(cables). structures
These structures are mechanically stabilized by the
action of pre-stress and are self-equilibrated without the The analysis of tensegrities, requires an initial pro-
application of an external force, i.e. their stability relies cedure to find their self-stressed equilibrium configura-
on the isometric straining of the inwardly pulling ten- tion, that is not identical to that of the polyhedron usu-
sile members against the outwardly pushing compression ally taken as geometric basis. This procedure is known
members. as form-finding and typically compute a critical param-
Because of the lack of physical connections between eter such as: a twisting angle, a cable-to-strut ratio or a
compression members, the pin-joints of a tensegrity struc- force-to-length ratio, which is also known as the tension
ture have a predictable, linear response to any external coefficient or the force density coefficient.
loads over a wide range of different shapes, which can be The existing form-finding methods are classified into

XC finite element OSS m XC news m XC source in GitHub m XC doxygen doc m XC sphinx doc
B Ana Ortega B Luis Pérez Tato Page 1
two broad families: kinematical and statical methods.
The kinematical methods determine the geometry of
a given tensegrity structure by maximizing the lengths
of the struts while keeping constant the given lengths of
the cables or, alternatively, by decreasing the length of
the cables until a minimum is reached while the length of
struts is kept constant.
The statical methods set up a relationship between
equilibrium configurations of a tensegrity structure with Figure 1: Model for element calibration
given topology (i.e. a given number of nodes and connect-
ing elements between them) and the forces in its members.
This relationship can be analyzed by various methods: an- 2D tensegriy. Snelson’s X-frame Let us consider the
alytical solutions, force density method, energy method, two-dimensional tensegrity structure in Fig. 2, where the
... outside edges are cables and the diagonal are struts.

Design with XC. Model validation.

Tensegrities are structures that can have arbitrarily
large displacements and rotations at the global level, for
that reason a three-dimensional co-rotational truss is used
for the analysis.
As the truss structure is loaded and deforms from
each original configuration, each of its elements poten-
tially does three things: it rotates, translates and de-
forms. A co-rotational formulation intends to separate Figure 2: Snelson’s X-frame model
the rigid body motions, integrated by rotation and trans-
lation, from strain producing deformations at the local In order to linearise the equilibrium equations, the
element level. This is accomplished by attaching a local force density method introduce for each element the force
element coordinate system, which rotates and translates density:
with the truss element. This co-rotating coordinate frame tij
qij = (1)
is oriented so that the x-axis is always directed along the lij
axis of the truss element and, which respect to it, the rigid where tij is the axial force in cable/strut ij and lij is
body rotations and translations are zero, only local strain its length.
producing deformations along the x-axis remains. For the tensegrity structure in Fig. 2 a force den-
sity of 1 in each cable and -1 in each strut is a state
of self-stress super stable, which is the strongest type of
prestress stability. The analytical solution, in this case
(Acable = Astrut = A), gives:
Calibration of the type of element The cables are mod-
eled with tension-only corotational truss elements, for 1
which the stiffness is removed if the element goes into Fcables = σprestressing · A · √ (2)
1+ 2
compression.
√
The element is defined by two nodes, the cross- Fstruts = Fcables · 2 (3)
sectional area, an initial stress, and the elastic modulus Fcables − σprestressing · A l
of the material. It is possible to assign to the element an ∆Lcables = · (4)
A E
effective self weight, defined as the gravity component of √
weight per volume transverse to the cable. Fstruts l · 2
∆Lstruts = · (5)
A E
The element condition at the beginning of the first
Figures 3 and 4 show the deformed shape and inter-
step is determined from the initial stress, that must be
nal forces in a self-stressed configuration and when a hor-
greater than zero. The element is nonlinear and requires
izontal point load is applied on the upper-right corner,
an iterative solution.
respectively.
Table 1 shows the results obtained for the model de- As can be seen in Table 2, the internal forces and de-
picted in figure 1 in different load conditions. formations calculated with the finite element model in XC

XC finite element OSS m XC news m XC source in GitHub m XC doxygen doc m XC sphinx doc
B Ana Ortega B Luis Pérez Tato Page 2
 Initial state Load state XC FE model results Analytical results Error
σprestr Fnod2 ∆L σelem ∆L σelem ∆L ∆L σelem
≈0 0 +0.001 m 210 MPa +0.001 m 210 MPa +0.001 m 0% 0%
210 MPa 0 0 0 -0.001 m 0 -0.001 m 0% 0%
210 MPa 21 kN 0 210 MPa 0 210 MPa 0 0% 0%
210 MPa 0 +0.001 m 420 MPa +0.001 m 420 MPa +0.001 m 0% 0%
210 MPa 0 -0.001 m 0 MPa -0.001 m 0 MPa -0.001 m 0% 0%

Table 1: Results from the calibration of the element

coincide entirely with those forthcoming from the analyt- nected by n cables. The n-plexes are defined by two pa-
ical solution. rameters: the number j of steps between the nodes that
are connected by a strut and the number k of steps be-
tween consecutively connected nodes along the convex
hull of a given polygon. All the models we have analyzed
here have the same connectivity j = k = 1.

Figure 3: 2D tensegriy Snelson’s X-frame. Axial internal forces in

self-stressed equilibrium configuration [kN] Figure 5: Cylindrical tensegrity

Figure 6: Unfolded cylindrical tensegrity

The form-finding of cylindrical tensegrities has been
studied using several approaches, for instance, the dy-
namic relaxation procedure by Motro (2003) and non-
linear programming by Pellegrin. Using the force force
densities q = t/l in the cables and struts, and assuming
that the top and bottom triangles lie in horizontal planes,
vertical equilibrium gives:
qstrut = −qdiag (6)
Figure 4: 2D tensegriy Snelson’s X-frame. Axial internal forces when
a horizontal 21 kN point load is applied on the upper-right corner
Super stability is attained for any set of positive cable
[kN]
forces densities that satisfy the condition:
!
Π
Cylindrical 3D tensegrities A cylindrical tensegrity qstrut = −2 · sin · qsadd (7)
n
structure, see Figs. 5 and 6, consists of two polygons,
which are connected by a set of n bracing cables and n For the triplex model depicted in Fig. 7 a self-stressed
struts. Each polygon consists of n ≥ 3 nodes intercon- configuration is analyzed (see Fig. 8) and a load case

XC finite element OSS m XC news m XC source in GitHub m XC doxygen doc m XC sphinx doc
B Ana Ortega B Luis Pérez Tato Page 3
 XC FE model results Analytical results Error
σprestr,cabl 420 MPa
Ncables 17396.9696984 N 17396.9696197 N ≈ 0
Nstruts -24603.030197 N -24603.0303803 N ≈ 0
∆Lcables -0.00117157286652 m -0.00117157287525 m ≈ 0
∆Lstruts -0.00165685423715 m -0.00165685424949 m ≈ 0

Table 2: Results from the analysis of Snelson’s X-frame

where three external point loads in -Z direction are ap-

plied on the nodes in the bottom face (see Fig. 9. The
quadruplex, or 4-plex for short, is shown in Fig. 10. Fi-
nally, we show three examples (Figs. 11, 12 and 13) of
tensegrity cylinders with a high degree of elements,such
as the 20-plex, 50-plex, and 100-plex. The results of the
XC model are compared with those from an analytical
calculation and are found to be in very good agreement,
as can be seen in Table 3.

Figure 8: 3D 3-plex tensegriy prism. Axial internal forces in self-

stressed equilibrium configuration [kN]

Figure 9: 3D 3-plex tensegriy prism. Axial internal forces when three

21 kN point loads in -Z direction are applied on the nodes in the
Figure 7: 3-plex tensegrity cylinder model bottom face [kN]

XC finite element OSS m XC news m XC source in GitHub m XC doxygen doc m XC sphinx doc
B Ana Ortega B Luis Pérez Tato Page 4
REFERENCES REFERENCES

Figure 10: 3D 4-plex tensegriy prism. Axial internal forces in self- Figure 12: 3D 50-plex tensegriy prism. Axial internal forces in self-
stressed equilibrium configuration [kN] stressed equilibrium configuration [kN]

Figure 11: 3D 20-plex tensegriy prism. Axial internal forces in self- Figure 13: 3D 100-plex tensegriy prism. Axial internal forces in self-
stressed equilibrium configuration [kN] stressed equilibrium configuration [kN]

References
[1] S. Pellegrino A.G. Tibert. Review of form-finding methods for tensegrity structures. Internation Journal of Space
Structures, 18(4):209–223, 2003.

[2] J.M. Puigoriol Forcada et al. Desarrollo de una metodolgı́a basada en el método de los elementos finitos para la
proyección de estructuras tenségridas. XVI Congreso Internacional de Ingenierı́a de Proyectos., pages 667–680,
Valencia, 11-13 de julio de 2012.
[3] J.M. Mirats Tur M. Pagitz. Finite element based form-finding algorithm for tensegrity structures. Internation
Journal of Solids and Structures, 46:3235–3240, 2009.

XC finite element OSS m XC news m XC source in GitHub m XC doxygen doc m XC sphinx doc
B Ana Ortega B Luis Pérez Tato Page 5
REFERENCES REFERENCES

Prism tstrut lstrut qstrut tdiag ldiag qdiag tsadd lsadd qsadd check1 check2
kN m kN/m kN m kN/m kN m kN/m
3-plex -26.7297 2.7771 -9.625 19.8633 2.0637 10.0 9.6101 1.7294 5.557 0.0 -0.0
4-plex -25.8205 2.7196 -9.4944 20.3107 2.1392 9.0 9.4797 1.412 6.7135 0.0 0.0
20-plex -22.1687 2.5099 -8.8326 21.0426 2.3824 9.0 8.8186 0.3124 28.2308 -0.0 -0.0
50-plex -21.4755 2.4725 -8.6859 21.0311 2.4213 9.0 8.6721 0.1254 69.1655 0.0 -0.0
100-plex -21.4566 4.7455 -4.5215 20.9125 4.6251 5.0 13.5462 0.1882 71.9739 0.0 -0.0
check1=qstrut + qdiag
check2=qstrut + 2 · sin(Π/n) · qsadd

Table 3: Results from the analysis of cylindrical tensegrities

XC finite element OSS m XC news m XC source in GitHub m XC doxygen doc m XC sphinx doc
B Ana Ortega B Luis Pérez Tato Page 6