Bars overlapping in tensegrity structurs belonging to the Octahedron family.

Abstract

When performing the form-finding process of full-forms of tensegrity structures it is observed that beyond the double-expanded octahedron, struts overlapping occurs in space, making practicably impossible to materialize the tensegrity to employ it as a real structure. As the spatial coordinates of nodes that determine the geometry of the structure are provided as a linear combination of vectors composing a base of null space of the tensegrity force density matrix, an analytical study is carried out to check the existence of any combination of those vectors that avoids the overlapping of bars.