Rhino Membrane Basic v3.0 for Rhino 7

 

 

• Rhino Membrane Unlimited (Unlimited Mesh Nodes / Natural Force Density Method and Update Reference Strategy Solver)
• Rhino Membrane Pro (Unlimited Mesh Nodes / Natural Force Density Method Solver)
• Rhino Membrane Basic (10000 Mesh Nodes / 30.000 DOFS / Natural Force Density Method Solver)

 

Rhino Membrane is a application with one of the most powerful form-finding strategies available today. Using a Fea (Finite Element Analysis) model it is able to relax any mesh into a stressed surface in equilibrium with positive stress fields only. Using sparse matrix strategies it is fast and reliable and any shape from conventional hypar, minimal surfaces and pneumatic cushions can be modeled.

 

Membrane structures require due to their extreme slenderness a different design process than conventional structures in engineering: since membranes only work in tension (compression will cause wrinkling in the structure), the structure has to be shaped in such a way that it can bear the main load cases only by tensile forces. To guarantee this essential requirement, the shape of the structure has to be determined by a form finding procedure: Instead of prescribing a material field X (i.e. the amount and position of material in space which composes the structure), an admissible stress field; is prescribed for which the equilibrium shape x is then determined.In detail, the user has to specify the prestress distribution in the membrane and the edge cables (Pre-Tension) as input for the form finding process. For pneumatic structures such as air-inflated cushions it is even possible to the pressure p in the form finding process. Additionally, sufficient boundary conditions such as fixed points or fixed edges have to be specified to obtain a unique solution for the equilibrium shape.

 

 

• boundary elements
• beams elements: steel, wood or other material
• prestressed cables

 

The cable can be either outside and inside the membrane, or in the contours.

 

 

• insert the geometric and static constraints of structure;
• check the properties of contours
• put prestress in the elements;
• define the parameters of creation of mesh;
• control any lability of the model;
• work out a solution through research in shape;
• check the parameters for the execution of form finding.