Equilibrium and stability of tensegrity structures: a convex analysis approach

In this paper, tensegrity structures are modeled by introducing suitable energy convex functions. These allow to enforce both ideal and non-ideal constraints, gathering compatibility, equilibrium, and stability problems, as well as their duality relationships, in the same functional framework. Arguments of convex analysis allow to recover consistently a number of basic results, as well as to formulate new interpretations and analysis criterions.