A Form-finding Technique for Three-dimensional Spatial Structures

Abstract

A form-finding technique is proposed for three-dimensional spatial structures. Two-step discrete finite element (FE) mesh generator based on computer aided geometric design (CAGD) is introduced and used to control the shape of three-dimensional spatial structures. Mathematical programming technique is adopted to search new forms (or shapes) of spatial structures. For this purpose, the strain energy is introduced as the objective function to be minimized and the initial volume (or the initial weight) is considered as constraint function. Numerical examples are carried out to test the capability of the proposed form-finding techniques and provided as benchmark tests.