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    Publication
    Unraveling tensegrity tessellations for metamaterials with tunable stiffness and bandgaps
    (01-10-2019)
    Liu, Ke
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    Zegard, Tomás
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    Paulino, Glaucio H.
    Tensegrity structures resemble biological tissues: A structural system that holds an internal balance of prestress. Owing to the presence of prestress, biological tissues can dramatically change their properties, making tensegrity a promising platform for tunable and functional metamaterials. However, tensegrity metamaterials require harmony between form and force in an infinitely–periodic scale, which makes the design of such systems challenging. In order to explore the full potential of tensegrity metamaterials, a systematic design approach is required. In this work, we propose an automated design framework that provides access to unlimited tensegrity metamaterial designs. The framework generates tensegrity metamaterials by tessellating blocks with designated geometries that are aware of the system periodicity. In particular, our formulation allows creation of Class-1 (i.e., floating struts) tensegrity metamaterials. We show that tensegrity metamaterials offer tunable effective elastic moduli, Poisson's ratio, and phononic bandgaps by properly changing their prestress levels, which provide a new dimension of programmability beyond geometry.
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    Publication
    Optimal design of cylindrical reinforced concrete water tanks resting on ground
    This work establishes that the newly revised code, Code of Practice (Part 2) for the design of reinforced concrete structures for the storage of liquids, IS 3370, provides for more economicaldesign of reinforced concrete water tanks in general, and cylindrical tanks, which are resting on ground, in particular. Parametric studies have been carried out to establish heuristic rules for proportioning the tank dimensions in order to achieve minimum cost. Studies have been done on the diameter (D) and height (H) of the storage as parameters. Optimal D/H ratios for various capacitiesof the tank have been established.