Meta-tensegrity: Design of a tensegrity prism with metal rubber

Abstract

A tensegrity structure involves the presence of elements withstanding pure compression, and others under pure tension only. Metal rubber is introduced into a tensegrity prism strut to create a mechanical metamaterial with energy absorption and tuneable dynamic properties. In this work we describe the design and development of the meta-tensegrity structure with particular emphasis on the evaluation of parameters such as the structural size, the metal rubber stiffness, the initial internal force and the external compression load. Prototypes of tensegrity prisms with and without metal rubber inserts have been assembled and subjected to quasi-static loading. The model used to design the meta tensegrity prism has been then modified to take into account specific manufacturing and internal dissipation mechanisms typical of this configuration. The updated model provides a better comparison with the experimental results. Both the theoretical and experimental data show that the introduction of the metal rubber within the tensegrity configuration contributes to improve significantly the energy absorption, and to reduce the stiffness of the whole tensegrity structure.

Predicting Nonlinear and Anisotropic Mechanics of Metal Rubber Using a Combination of Constitutive Modeling, Machine Learning, and Finite Element Analysis

“…According to the experimental results of Wang et al [31], the effective Poisson's ratio ν yx was approximately zero. Zhang et al [19] reported that the tangent Poisson's ratio of MR was approximately 0.01 at small deformations and could reach 0.1 at large deformations.…”

“…Zhu et al [30] analyzed three types of contact status of micro helix springs under the assumption that the spatial distribution of the microelements inside the MR is even and periodic. On that basis, they built a mathematical model to describe the behavior of the MR. Ma et al [31] introduced MR into the tensegrity structure to improve energy absorption and reduce the stiffness, and they presented a mathematical model of tensegrity based on the nonlinearity mechanics of MR. The pyramid model was used to describe the principle of energy dissipation of MR. Before calculating the horizontal and vertical friction pair, it is necessary to experimentally identify the coefficient of the MR and the angle of the pyramid contact pair [32].…”

Layered composite entangled wire materials blocks as pre-tensioned vertebral rocking columns

“…Therefore, dynamic performance of EWMs under large deformations needs be investigated for their potential use in the novel biologically-inspired bridge pier. Entangled metal wires have multifunctional applications, and have been also recently proposed as energy dissipating units in tensegrity prisms systems ( [39], [40]). It is worth noticing that tensegrity prism does possess mechanical behaviours similar to the human spine [41], and also offers interesting static and dynamics performance in a lightweight design in civil constructions [42], [43], [44].…”

Comparative study of two types of self-recovery shape-memory alloy pseudo-rubber isolator devices under compression–shear interactions

“…Metal wire-based pseudo-rubber, which is also called metal rubber (MR) (Ma et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2013), and entangled metallic wire materials (Gadot et al, 2015) have been fabricated and investigated by several research groups over the past decades. These types of porous materials are usually fabricated using thin stainless-steel wires or SMA wires (0.1-0.5 mm in diameter) through wrapping, weaving, rolling, and stamping processes.…”