Tensegrity
a year ago
- #biomechanics
- #architecture
- #robotics
- Tensegrity is a structural principle based on isolated compression components within a continuous tension network.
- Coined by Buckminster Fuller in the 1960s, combining 'tensional integrity.'
- Key principles include continuous tension, discontinuous compression, pre-stressed state, self-equilibration, minimalism, and scalability.
- Applications span architecture (e.g., Kurilpa Bridge), robotics (e.g., NASA's Super Ball Bot), and biology (e.g., biotensegrity in human anatomy).
- Early examples include the 1951 Skylon and Kenneth Snelson's Needle Tower (1968).
- Mathematically, tensegrity structures exhibit auxetic responses and negative Poisson ratios.
- Origins are debated, with influences from Soviet constructivism and Fuller's geodesic domes.