Abstract
The determination of the state of internal stress is important to define the rigidity of a tensegrity structure and its stability. Severalmethods can be used; some are based on direct measurements of the forces in the elements, but are not easily transferable to a real structure.The authors opt for indirect measurement techniques, which seem more appropriate for implementation on-site. One can consider thevibratory anal-ysis of the elements, the vibratory analysis of the whole structure, or the analysis of the structure’s behavior under staticloading. Here, the node displacement fields of a tensegrity structure in different states of self-stress under several strategies of static loadingsis studied by comparing the measurement obtained by a tachometer with simulations. The aim of this work is to show the feasibility of adisplacement field to identify the state of self-stress by this analysis. It is shown that under certain conditions, plans can be made to replacethe direct measurement of the forces by indirect analysis.