In mathematical crystallography and computational materials science, it is important to infer flexibility properties of framework materials from their geometric representation. We study combinatorial, geometric and kinematic properties for frameworks modeled on sodalite.
In materials science, auxetic behavior refers to lateral widening upon stretching. We investigate the problem of finding domains of auxeticity in global deformation spaces of periodic frameworks. Case studies include planar periodic mechanisms constructed from quadrilaterals with diagonals as periods and other frameworks with two vertex orbits. We relate several geometric and kinematic descriptions.
We extend the mathematical theory of rigidity of frameworks (graphs embedded in $d$-dimensional space) to consider nonlocal rigidity and flexibility properties. We provide conditions on a framework under which (I) as the framework flexes continuously it must remain inside a small ball, a property we call almost-rigidity; (II) any other framework with the same edge lengths must lie outside a much larger ball; (III) if the framework deforms by some given amount, its edge lengths change by a minimum amount; (IV) there is a nearby framework that is prestress stable, and thus rigid. The conditions can be tested efficiently using semidefinite programming. The test is a slight extension of the test for prestress stability of a framework, and gives analytic expressions for the radii of the balls and the edge length changes. Examples illustrate how the theory may be applied in practice, and we provide an algorithm to test for rigidity or almost-rigidity. We briefly discuss how the theory may be applied to tensegrities.
Symmetry equations are obtained for the rigidity matrix of a bar-joint framework in R^d. These form the basis for a short proof of the Fowler-Guest symmetry group generalisation of the Calladine-Maxwell counting rules. Similar symmetry equations are obtained for the Jacobian of diverse framework systems, including constrained point-line systems that appear in CAD, body-pin frameworks, hybrid systems of distance constrained objects and infinite bar-joint frameworks. This leads to generalised forms of the Fowler-Guest character formula together with counting rules in terms of counts of symmetry-fixed elements. Necessary conditions for isostaticity are obtained for asymmetric frameworks, both when symmetries are present in subframeworks and when symmetries occur in partition-derived frameworks.
Combinatorial characterisations are obtained of symmetric and anti-symmetric infinitesimal rigidity for two-dimensional frameworks with reflectional symmetry in the case of norms where the unit ball is a quadrilateral and where the reflection acts freely on the vertex set. At the framework level, these characterisations are given in terms of induced monochrome subgraph decompositions, and at the graph level they are given in terms of sparsity counts and recursive construction sequences for the corresponding signed quotient graphs.
We develop a combinatorial rigidity theory for symmetric bar-joint frameworks in a general finite dimensional normed space. In the case of rotational symmetry, matroidal Maxwell-type sparsity counts are identified for a large class of $d$-dimensional normed spaces (including all $ell^p$ spaces with $p ot=2$). Complete combinatorial characterisations are obtained for half-turn rotation in the $ell^1$ and $ell^infty$-plane. As a key tool, a new Henneberg-type inductive construction is developed for the matroidal class of $(2,2,0)$-gain-tight graphs.