Overview of Highly Flexible, Deployable Lattice Structures Used in Architecture and Civil Engineering Undergoing Large Displacements

In this article an extensive but not exhaustive review on different transformable systems - retractable roofs, deployable and retractable pantographic lattice systems, pop-up and snap-through type structures, tensegrity structures - used in architecture and civil engineering will be given. This study was carried out to explore earlier and current researches and technologies to demonstrate the available systems and their potential. However, the main goal of this article is to expose the wild range of structural systems requiring elaborate dynamical analysis, divers of them are still lacking profound calculation procedure.

The reviewed systems are herein categorized in two groups: 1) multibody systems having additional controlling and stabilizing elements and 2) systems undergoing large deformation, and instability phenomena. The article will pan out about the applicable joint types, some of them involving friction and damping effects. For a better outline, simplified analysis of elementary segments of some reviewed systems is annexed.