Modeling of Four-Bar Tensegrity-Membrane Systems

Tensegrity-membrane systems are lightweight and deployable structures that can be utilized in space applications such as solar sails and radar antennas. This work focuses on four-bar tensegrity-membrane systems. An energy-based method is used to determine the static configurations of four-bar tensegrity-membrane systems, and the explicit equilibrium conditions for the symmetric systems are derived. The system dynamics is studied based on the Lagrange’s method by appropriately choosing a floating reference frame for the attached membrane. The stress distribution in the membrane due to corner displacements and the free vibration modes of the membrane are determined by a polynomial series method, and are compared with the finite element results calculated by ANSYS. The linear and nonlinear simulation results of the system are presented and compared. The difference between linear and nonlinear simulation results is illustrated and discussed.