Study and construction of a pentagon-based tensegrity ring
Résumé
Tensegrity rings are composed of strut circuits and based on straight prism geometry. Recently, authors developed a general study for this kind of structure and discovered their ability of folding. In this paper, we present our recent studies on the pentagon-based tensegrity ring from a mechanical, kinematical and experimental point of view. In term of theoretical study, numerical simulations are carried out. We analyse the influence of the self-stress level and element stiffness (cables and struts) on the global system. In matter of experimentation, we present design of our first human-scaled prototype which provides a remarkable lightness. Finally, we describe the folding of this system with a comparison between experiments and numerical simulations