Senatore, G;
Duffour, P;
Winslow, P;
Wise, C;
(2018)
Shape control and whole-life energy assessment of an 'infinitely stiff' prototype adaptive structure.
Smart Materials and Structures
, 27
(1)
, Article 015022. 10.1088/1361-665X/aa8cb8.
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Abstract
A previously developed design methodology produces optimum adaptive structures that minimise the whole-life energy which is made of an embodied part in the material and an operational part for structural adaptation. Planar and complex spatial reticular structures designed with this method and simulations showed that the adaptive solution achieves savings as high as 70% in the whole-life energy compared to optimised passive solutions. This paper describes a large-scale prototype adaptive structure built to validate the numerical findings and investigate the practicality of the design method. Experimental results show that (1) shape control can be used to achieve 'infinite stiffness' (i.e. to reduce displacements completely) in real-time without predetermined knowledge regarding position, direction and magnitude (within limits) of the external load; (2) the whole-life energy of the structure is in good agreement with that predicted by numerical simulations. This result confirms the proposed design method is reliable and that adaptive structures can achieve substantive total energy savings compared to passive structures.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Shape control and whole-life energy assessment of an 'infinitely stiff' prototype adaptive structure |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1088/1361-665X/aa8cb8 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-665X/aa8cb8 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0). Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. |
| Keywords: | prototype adaptive structure, shape control, load-path optimisation, whole-life energy, structural optimisation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Civil, Environ and Geomatic Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10041753 |
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