Computers & Srructures Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 67-83, 1988 0045.7949/88 $3.00 + 0.

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Printed in Great Britain. 0 1988 Civil-Comp Ltd and Pergamon Press plc

MINIMAL SURFACES FOR FINDING FORMS OF

STRUCTURAL MEMBRANES
L. GR~NDIG
Institute for Applications of Geodesy, University of Stuttgart, Keplerstrasse lo,7000 Stuttgart I, F.R.G.

Abstract-A solution strategy for computing surfaces based on minimal area calculation is described which
shows a number of advantages compared with other strategies. It is derived from a discrete network type
formulation of the shape and its properties. Any air inflated structure might be formulated in this approach
and the definition of the boundary of the surface is not limited to fixed geometrical values but also allows for
free boundaries defined by cable forces.

INTRODUCTION An unloaded soap bubble within a given frame

assumes a minimal surface of the kind of a saddle
Minimal surfaces are characterized by the property of
shape. In addition this shape has the property of
a minimal area within a given boundary situation.
zero mean curvature. In any point of the surface the
They play an important role in mathematics and
main curvatures are equal but of opposite sign. If
physics because these areas in addition show specific
the soap bubble is loaded, i.e. by a constant internal
physical properties, and they can even be defined in a
pressure, the stresses in the resulting surface will
physical way. If the interrelationship between geome-
also be constant. Then the surface area is minimal
try and stresses is described one arrives at the minimal
with respect to the boundary value internal pressure
surface being the figure of equilibrium which will be
or with respect to the boundary condition of a
assumed by a soap bubble being forced into a given
predefined volume included by the surface. The sur-
frame. In this ideal membrane neither shear forces nor
face will then show a synclastic curvature instead of
volume forces occur and the stress in any point of the
an anticlastic curvature for the unloaded case. The
surface is constant. The stresses influence the geometri-
name ‘minimal surface’ is strictly only valid for
cal shape of the surface which also has a purely
surface areas with zero mean curvature. In this
geometrical definition in this case.
report surfaces of minimal areas also shall be called
Except for very special minimal surfaces defined by
minimal surfaces because for the loaded surfaces the
boundary situations of a certain kind, minimal sur-
essential physical property of constant stress remains
faces in general cannot be described in a complete
valid and the geometrical property of a minimal area
mathematical way. The surfaces are characterized
restricted by boundary conditions of a more general
according to Lagrange (1762) by the following differ-
type. As a result of the interrelations between the
ential equations of second order:
geometry and the forces of a structure any external
forces, i.e. external pressure, are an essential for
( 1 + z& - 2Z,Z& + ( 1 + zZ)z,, = 0, (1) formfinding of an ideal equally stressed membrane.
From a mathematical point of view the law that
with
‘minimal surfaces are surfaces of differential geo-
metrical kind with their mean curvature being zero’
r =f(GY) will be. broken [l].
Minimal surfaces are not uniquely defined. For any
af given boundary condition there exist one or more
ZX= z
minimal surfaces belonging to that boundary con-
dition. Restricting to the practically significant type
af of boundary conditions which, according to [l], ‘can
Z?= 5
be projected in a unique way onto a plane curve by
any central perspective’, there exists only one solu-
w tion for a minimal surface. Another law from [l]
zx.r
=s
is useful for motivating the following strategy of
calculation. ‘The area of a minimal surface of the same
ef topological type is always the strict minimum com-
ZYY = ay2
pared with the neighbouring areas and the same
boundary situation.’ From that it may be con-
ef cluded that, for a given proximity description of the
ZXY = dxay’
points on a surface, the minimum surface can be

679
680 L.
determined by minimizing the area, because the topo-
logical type of the area is strictly defined by the
relations of proximity. From these properties it is
possible to arrive at a powerful instrument for cal-
culating minimal surfaces and therefore for finding
the shape of structural membranes and for air inflated
structures.
MATHEMATICAL APPROACHES FOR CALCULATING
MINIMAL SURFACES
Mathematical approaches for minimal surfaces
normally start with the differential eqns (1). Observing
the boundary conditions a solution of the differential
equations is searched for, with the exception of very
special solutions a closed formula for the solution
surface cannot be obtained. Therefore the differential
equations have to be discretized and solved for using
proper points of support.
In the approach of [2] a discrete triangular facet
area is used. The surface area is described as the sum of
the individual areas of the triangles. The areas of the
triangles are functions of the positions of the edge
points of the triangles with the coordinates x, y, z.
Keeping x and y as constant z is allowed to vary in such
a way that the gradient of the sum of the surface areas
around every point of the surface will disappear and
will become zero. According to [2] this strategy is
restricted to surfaces with a geometrically defined
boundary which has to be planar in case of volume
restrictions.
Several other strategies [3,4] start from a finite
element description of the surface and describe the
minimal surface in their physical meaning as an area
with constant stress.
The global strategy described in the following starts,
like the strategy of [2], from a discrete description of the
area with points and triangles connecting the points.
The restrictions of the approach of [2], however,
are not valid any more and any boundary curves are
allowed (Fig. 1).
THE APPROACH OF MINIMIZATION OF
TRIANGULAR AREAS
As a minimal surface structure reflects the minimum
area of all the triangles between neighbouring points
on the surface, the following condition is valid if the
Fig. 1. Triangularization as a basis for a minimal surface
calculation.
GR~~NDIG
triangles allow for a sufficiently close description of the
surface:
S=xA,=minVI. (2)
Here A, represents the area of the triangle p. The area
of the triangle is a function of the coordinates of the
edge points of the triangles.
Equation (2) can be formulated in a quadratic
form using & = JAp and arranging f, in the vector
fapplying the scalar product
S =frf = min. (3)
Equation (3) is a least squares approach according to
Gauss. The following conditions, being necessary for
the minimizing of eqn (3) are valid with f=f(x)
and xr=[x,y,z ,..., x,y, z], the coordinates of the
edge points of all triangles arranged in a vector x
of coordinates
0g;=o. (4)
As the area is subdivided into m triangles and the
number of triangles is smaller than the number of edge
points, eqn (4) cannot be solved in the usual way by
keeping aflax fixed and using Taylor expansion only
forf. The resulting system of equations of the following
kind would become singular:
($r($dx = -(;rj& (5)
The system of eqns (5) does not allow for a solution of
the adjustment problem, because an essential property
of minimal surfaces has been disregarded, namely the
minimal area being positive and significantly different
from zero. All triangular surfaces will become positive
if the surface is obtained by stretching it into a given
boundary frame and these surfaces will be significantly
larger than zero. Newton’s method is applied in a strict
way starting from the nonlinear system of eqns (4) and
applying the chain rule of differentiation the following
system of equations results:
+‘(t%-)d
=_(“b
ax I/“=cons, ax
NII N22
With the matrices N,, and N12 we arrive at the
following system of equations:
with xi:=xi_, + dx, starting from initial values x,
the solution of the system of equations is determined
iteratively.
 Finding forms of structural membranes 681

Instead of applying Gaussian transformation where

the matrix N would result and also the right hand
side of the system of eqns (5) as well, the structure of (8)
and (9) is evaluated with respect to the whole surface
area.
The coordinate differences within any network may
be formulated by
k

Fig. 2. Triangle p with corner points i,j, k and edge-lengths u = cx. 00)
a, b, c.
The coordinate difference u, = xi - x, in the triangle
The formation of the derivatives proves to be a p leads to the general definition of the elements of
tedious exercise in general and Schwenkel[2] decided in the pth row of C, which is a branch-node matrix of
his approach to determine the derivatives by numerical the network
differentiation. This is not true if the following ap-
proach is to be used. C(m, n) = 1, if node i = n in the triangle p
Because the triangles can be arranged in any
position in space a representation of the area is useful C(m,n)= -1, ifnodek=ninthetrianglep (11)
which does not favour any of the coordinates of the
corner position. Heron’s formula allows for this. For C(m, n) = 0 elsewhere.
any given triangle with the edge-lengths a, b, c and the
sum value 2s = a + b + c, the area can be expressed by C is defined completely allowing p to represent
(Fig. 2) any triangle of the structure. Because there are three
types of coordinate differences in any triangle accord-
A, = ,/(s(s - n)(s - b)(s - c)). (7) ing to (9), three matrices C,, C,, C, are required to
describe all the existing coordinate differences in the
The sides of the triangles are functions of the
whole structure
coordinates of the comer points. Therefore the areas
of the triangles can be expressed in any geometrical
111= c,x
position using the same formula. Applying formulas
(4) and (6) fp = ,/A has to be formed and the Jaco-
bian matrices aflax and N,,, Nr2 will be needed. The
lA2= c,x (12)
Taylor expansion forfleads to so-called ‘error equa-
tions’ for all triangles, and v represents the square uj = c,x.
root of the residual of the triangular area.
Now arranging the ratios s,Ju,sb~b,sc/c in three dia-
gonal matrices L,,Lr,Lr of rank m (the number of
f= g dx+f,. (8) triangles), and arranging the coordinate differences
0
ui, ur, uj and the square roots of the triangular areas
The pth column of the Jacobian matrix aflax only A in diagonal matrices as well, results in
contains elements in the rows defined by the coordi-
nates of the points i,j, k. These elements are obtained u = A(L,U,C, + L.,U,C, + L,U,C,)dk +f: (13)
by ordinary differentiation and result in the following
expression: The Jacobian matrix aflax therefore is
A(L,U,C, + L21J2C2+ L,U,C,) and (4) becomes
up = 2 (xi - xk) (dxi - dx&
E ;= (CIUIL, + C*U,L, + C,U,L,)Af= 0. (14)
0

This equation allows the visualization of the struc-

ture of the system of equations, very similar to a
+ 2 (Xj - Xi) (d_Y,- dx,), (9) network formulation described in [5] or [6]. It
may easily be rearranged for a proper linearization,
observing
where

s, = l/S - l/(S -a) + l/(S -b) + l/(S - c) u=Ae, (15)

sb = l/s + l/(s - a) - l/(s -b) + I/@ -c) with er=[l,l,..., 1, 1], A any diagonal matrix and
a its corresponding vector s. If a, b are vectors and
S, = l/S + l/(S - a) + l/(S - b) - l/(S -c). A, B their corresponding diagonal matrices according
682 L. GR~~NDIG

to eqn (15) aB = bA. The elements depending on x

are only arranged in the vectors A u and I and their
corresponding diagonal matrices.
The linearization with respect to the variable f
leads to the ordinary normal equations, being com-
puted by Gaussian transformation of eqn (13).
The linearization with respect to LiAi = const,
i = I, 2,3 leads to the sum of the following matrix
products:

(C$,A,C, + C:L2A2C2 + C;L,A,C,).

This type of equation may be generated from artificial
error equations of the following form:
u, = C, dx
v2 = C,dx
v, = C, dx.
These additional error equations only get the
weights s,f/a, s*f/b and s,f/c. For acute-angled
triangles these values become positive and the
resulting system of equations is positive definite in
any case. Therefore the target function S = f ‘f is
Fig. 3. Plan and topology.
remain sparse and the solution strategy does not have
to be changed.
Fixing of the boundary cables may be unnecessary.
(16) Due to the formulation of eqns (10) which reflect a
cable net boundary according to the method of force
density, automatically ‘free boundaries’ are possible.
In analogy to the formulation of the force density
method for these cables, the ratio cable force divided
by cable length will be fixed ([7,8]).
EXAMPLES OF APPLICATION

minimized and convergence of the calculation is

The variability of the program package MINI is
achieved in any case. The additional equations may be
demonstrated with the following examples. Starting
seen as damping factors for solving the nonlinear
from a topological description (Fig. 3) of a planar
eqns (4).
network with squared and radial grid elements and
the triangularization (Fig. 4), the boundary was fixed
REMARKS TO THE SOLUTION STRATEGY MINI
(Fig. 5) and the points of the first ring around the
central position (Fig. 6). Moving that ring leads to the
The discretization of the surface can be done situation shown in Fig. 7 and fixing the central position
arbitrarily i.e. in a plane starting with a quadratic mesh instead of the ring results in the surfaces shown in
or with any type of triangularization. In strongly Figs. 8 and 9. Figure 9 shows the power of the
curved parts of the minimal surface the triangles could approach which even allows the modelling of singular
be densified and the minimum calculation may be point situations. Inflating the membrane by assuming
repeated. external forces normal to the surface results in Fig. 10.
There are no initial coordinates necessary to start External forces are modelled by modification of the
the calculation with. The linear expressions in eqn right hand side of the system of equations.
(16) are sufficient to provide starting values for Figure 11 shows a model with a flexible boun-
the iterative calculation of the minimal surface. In dary situation. The power of the approach becomes
practice the weight factors are proposed to be 1, which visible in the following mathematical model of a
reflects a discretization of the surface with equal-sided
triangles.
For the sake of simplicity in the above formulas only
the coordinates x are assumed to vary. The extension
with respect to y and z may be done in an analogous
manner. The coefficients in the formulas (16) even
remain the same.
Equations (9) and (16) lead to sparse systems of
equations which may be solved with sparse matrix
algorithms in an efficient way. In the FORTRAN
program package MINI the method of conjugate
gradients is implemented as described in [6].
If additional conditions exist for formfinding, these
can be expressed as external loads and can be assigned Fig. 4. Creating triangular elements as a basis for the minimal
c . . ..
to the corner points of the triangles. The equations still surface wculanon.
 Finding forms of structural membranes
Fig. 5. Minimal surface with fixed outer boundary and fixed
inner ring.
Fig. 7. Minimal surface with fixed central position.
Fig. 9. Minimal surface subjected to inner pressure.
Fig. 11. Minimal surface of the model for a Health Spa.
complex roof structure which was built in West
Germany as a wooden roof for a Health Spa. The
minimal surface was a starting situation for the actual
geometry of the surface. The surface was modified
adapting architectural wishes and constructural
needs [9]. The structure lines were materialized with
wooden beams being doubly curved (limber).
REFERENCES
J. Nitsche, Vorlesungen iiber MinimalJliichen. Springer,
Berlin (1975).
D. Schwenkel, Form studies relating to air-supported
structures by minimization of element surface areas.
CAD 15, No. I (1983).
E. Haug and J. Gelbermann, Numerical design and
analysis on air supported structures. IASS International
Symposium on Air Supported Structures, Vendig (1977).
D. S. Wakefield, Tensyl: An integrated CAD approach
to stressed membrane structures. Proc. of the Second
Int. Conference. Civil-Camp 85.
683
Fig. 6. Minimal surface with variation of the position of the
inner ring.
Fig. 8. Minimal surface with elevated central position.
Fig. 10. Minimal surface with boundary partly relaxed.
5. H.-J. Schek, The force density method for form finding
and computation of general networks. Comput. Meth.
appl. Mech. Engng3,115-134 (1974).
6. L. Grtlndig, Die Berechnung von vorgespannten Seil-
netzen und Hiingenetzen unter Beriicksichtigung ihrer
topologischen und physikalischen Eigenschaften und der
Ausgleichungsrechnung. DGK, Reihe C, Nr. 216, 1976
und Mitteilungen des SFB 64 ‘Weitgespannte Fliichen-
tragwerke’, Nr 34 (1976).
7. L. Grilndig, The ‘FORCE-DENSITY’ approach and
numerical methods for the calculation of networks. In
Proc. of 3. Intern. Symposium ‘Weitgespannte Flachen-
tragwerke’, Stuttgart (1985).
8. K. Linkwitz, L. Griindig, U. Hangleiter and J. Bahndorf,
Mathmatisch-numerische Methoden der Netzberech-
nung. Mitteilungen des SFB 64 ‘Weitgespannte Fliichen-
tragwerke’, Nr 72.
9. L. Griindig and J. Bahndorf, Formfinding of a roof
structure for a Health Spa. First Int. Conference
on Lightweight Structures in Architecture, Sydney,
Australia (1986).
10. L. Grtlndig, J. Bahndorf and M. Neureither, Mini-
malfl&hen zur Formfindung von Membranen. ARCUS,
Munchen, Heft 2 (1987).