Form-finding software and minimal surface equation: A comparative approach

Abstract

The shape of membrane and cable-net structures is usually modeled by geometry of minimal surfaces. Using central finite differences method, a nonlinear iterative process for finding the minimalC® surface with given fixed boundary conditions is developed and implemented in Mathematica. Having in mind form-finding of membrane structures, the results are compared with the results obtained by commercial package EASY®, made by Technet GmbH, Germany.