This is an educational and research code package for active structures, including tensegrity, origami, trusses, mechanisms, metamaterials, and many others. Please ensure running in MATLAB 2024a or newer version!
The following Intro Figure shows some working examples.
More specifically, the model in this package represents an active structure using nodal representations without rotational degrees-of-freedom. Such formulation are similar to the pseudo-rigid-body model coined in the pioneering research by Prof. Larry Howell. The ability to capture phenonmena like bending and twisting is enabled through using four-node and three-node rotational spring elements.
While the modeling approach may not be suitable for all active structures (there probably exists no universal model for every problem), I believe the framework is particularly suitable for educational purpose and many interesting research problems I myself have worked on. This formulation is good for demonstrating element formulation for large deformation, implicit and explicit nonlinear solvers, and integration of simulation package. The formulation can be easily adopted for many active structures rapidly for a research project, giving people great flexibility. Being non-black-box also make it easy to make changes to the code for specific problems or connect the code with optimization packages for design. I will not claim that the code package is a replacement to commercial softwares (which is not the case), but it offers very different capabilities that I myself does not find in commercial softwares.
Please find the list of tutorial videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLR0SJ1WSb92-_e7nog4T6sGMNHzgWRNx
The first vdieo from this series can be found here:
I tried to make my group's internal training more systematic by creating these videos. I believe that this will be a great first step for my own students to get started with coding and simulation of active and adaptive structures. Hopefully, these tutorial videos will eventually evolve into a grad level class on the topics of active structures. Since I have already created these, why not make them open-access right ;)
This package is associated with a living textbook component. This living textbook is based on the live script function in MATLAB, where we can combine text, equations, figures, codes, functions, and results in one place. This is really ideal for introducing simulation of active structures because we really need all these components side by side. I am constructing this package for my own students, I hope this will become their starting point to learn simulation for active structures. However, I believe such an effort is worth made open-access, which is why I uploaded this package here.
Please ensure running in MATLAB 2024a or newer version!
In the live script ("living textbook"), functions are created as we are working through examles. Thus, deifinition of functions are merged with global codes. Running such mixture of live script is only supported in 2024a or newer. In older MATLAB versions, functions must be in the back (which is not ideal when the code is integrated into textbooks). This "living-textbook" idea is only possible with the 2024a or newer MATLAB so Hey! We are definitely the state-of-the-art!
When using the code, please add "00_SourceCode_Elements" and "00_SourceCode_Solver" to the path in MATLAB. For some examples, we can use "00_SourceCode_Elements_Advanced" for faster computation.
Basic elements are derived using central-difference method while advanced elements are derived analytically. Advanced elements are all vectorized for computation speed and they begin with "Vec_Elements". Basic elements begin with "CD_Elements" representing that their derivation is based on central difference.
This project is released using the CC-BY 4.0 liscence. You are free to share, adapt, or even commercially use the contant as long as appropriate credit is given to the creator. Guidline about CC-BY 4.0 liscence is found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
Please cite this work as: Yi Zhu, Simulator for Active STructures: Sim-FAST - A Living Textbook, https://github.com/zzhuyii/Sim-FAST, Accessed at XX day XX month XX year.