On the geometry of discrete Michell trusses

This paper concerns design of two-dimensional minimum weight trusses with a limited number of bars and nodes, so called discrete Michell trusses. It is shown that the geometrical properties for such discrete systems found by Prager in 1978, is analogues to the properties for continuous systems given by Michell in 1904. A set of simple design rules are extracted and it is indicated how these rules can be used to construct discrete Michell truss geometries. A number of geometrical optimized discrete examples of known Michell trusses are presented and they meet these design rules very well.