Abstract

The current work presents a novel method to form find efficient funnel shell structures beyond the constraints of funicularity. The so-called Bending-driven Dynamic Corrugation method is introduced within the framework of corrugated shell design and that of integrated computational form finding workflows. The hereby presented method employs the analysis of bending energy of an initial non- funicular shell design as the driver for defining the location and modulation of a corrugation of its surface. The parameters of this corrugation are further manipulated by a multi-objective optimization algorithm to generate a set of performative solutions. The form found solutions exhibit an improved bending and buckling stiffness compared with a traditional cross-section optimized version of the same initial design. Most importantly, these dynamically corrugated designs achieve these improvements using significantly less material. Along with the performance gains, the resulting designs are deemed as a contribution to the expressiveness of the shell structure.