Bundling elastic gridshells with alignable nets. Part I: Analytical approach

• Published in: Automation in construction Vol. 141; p. 104291
• Main Author: Tellier, Xavier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.09.2022
• Subjects: Active-bending; Architectural geometry; Chebychev nets; Differential geometry; Elastic gridshells; Lattice grids; Self-shaping gridshells; Chebychev nets; Active-bending; Differential geometry; Lattice grids; Elastic gridshells; Self-shaping gridshells; Architectural geometry
• ISSN: 0926-5805; 1872-7891
• DOI: 10.1016/j.autcon.2022.104291

Elastic gridshells (EGS) offer a cost-effective and rapid way to construct lightweight structures. This paper focuses on bundlable EGS, gridshells which may be deployed from a compact slender state, thus allowing for off-site fabrication. Some bundlable EGS have the additional property of being self-shaping, an aspect that simplifies considerably the erection phase. Despite recent research interest, there is still a lack of understanding of the design space of bundlable EGS, and a need for intuitive design tools for preliminary design phases – in particular for self-shaping EGS. Based on this observation, this article introduces alignable nets, shapes that inherently fulfill the metrical compatibility constraint of bundlability. This mathematical formulation allows to identify analytical shapes of bundlable EGS, which constitute very accessible design tools. In particular, surfaces of revolution appear to be a valuable tool for the conceptual design of self-shaping gridshells, as they may give instant feedbacks on the mechanical energy required for deployment – allowing notably to design structures that may be deployed with zero total external work. •This article studies grids of beams that may be deployed elastically from a bundle configuration.•Alignable nets are introduced: grid shapes that fulfill a necessary condition to avoid high axial stresses during bundling.•Chebychev nets, the geometrical basis of regular gridshell, appear as a particular case of alignable nets.•Analytical solutions are identified, they constitute rich and simple design tools.•Some bundlable gridshells are also self-shaping: they spontaneously take a target shape when opened.•These may be designed simply with diagonal rotational nets, a subfamily of alignable nets.•For these, the deployment energy may be estimated in real time – an aspect that usually requires heavy computations.