NURBS-GM method for computational morphogenesis of free form structures

As a new tendency of modern spatial structures, free form surfaces have been widely adopted nowadays because of their predominant architectural representation. However, the main difficulty involving free form architecture design is how to balance the relationship between novel shapes of free form structures and excellent mechanical performance, if compared with traditional space structures. Recently, the development of structural morphology, especially for the production of computational morphogenesis, presents an effective approach. In this paper, a new method of computational structural morphogenesis is put forward, named as NURBS-GM method. Taking the primary idea of computational morphogenesis as a reference, this numerical method for free form surfaces is based on the NURBS technique and the gradient method from the principle of optimization with the structure stain energy as the objective function. The key point of this method is that by adjusting the control points and the weights of the numerical function of NURBS surface, the shape of free form structures can be modified to obtain an appropriate mechanical performance. Examples are provided to verify the efficiency of this method.