Form-finding of spatial grid structures with volume constraints

The conventional inverse hanging method has been widely used for the form-finding of structures. However, the simulation results may vary significantly due to different initial models and material properties. It is difficult to choose one specific design shape from all the possible solutions. A modified hanging method is proposed in this paper to search for the stiffest design for a structure from arbitrary initial models with a given volume constraint. A variety of 2D and 3D examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. It is shown that the proposed optimization procedure is capable of substantially enhancing the performance of the structure while the target volume is kept constant.