![Rhombic dodecahedron](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Rhombic_dodecahedron.stl)
In
geometry
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...
, the rhombic dodecahedron is a
convex polyhedron
A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set contained in the n-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^n. Most texts. use the term "polytope" for a bounded convex polytope, and the wo ...
with 12
congruent
Congruence may refer to:
Mathematics
* Congruence (geometry), being the same size and shape
* Congruence or congruence relation, in abstract algebra, an equivalence relation on an algebraic structure that is compatible with the structure
* In mod ...
rhombic faces
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...
. It has 24
edges, and 14
vertices of 2 types. It is a
Catalan solid
In mathematics, a Catalan solid, or Archimedean dual, is a dual polyhedron to an Archimedean solid. There are 13 Catalan solids. They are named for the Belgian mathematician Eugène Catalan, who first described them in 1865.
The Catalan sol ...
, and the
dual polyhedron
In geometry, every polyhedron is associated with a second dual structure, where the vertices of one correspond to the faces of the other, and the edges between pairs of vertices of one correspond to the edges between pairs of faces of the other. ...
of the
cuboctahedron
A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such, it ...
.
Properties
The rhombic dodecahedron is a
zonohedron
In geometry, a zonohedron is a convex polyhedron that is centrally symmetric, every face of which is a polygon that is centrally symmetric (a zonogon). Any zonohedron may equivalently be described as the Minkowski sum of a set of line segments i ...
. Its polyhedral
dual is the
cuboctahedron
A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such, it ...
. The long face-diagonal length is exactly
times the short face-diagonal length; thus, the
acute
Acute may refer to:
Science and technology
* Acute angle
** Acute triangle
** Acute, a leaf shape in the glossary of leaf morphology
* Acute (medicine), a disease that it is of short duration and of recent onset.
** Acute toxicity, the adverse eff ...
angles on each face measure arccos(), or approximately 70.53°.
Being the dual of an
Archimedean polyhedron
In geometry, an Archimedean solid is one of the 13 solids first enumerated by Archimedes. They are the convex polytope, convex Uniform polyhedron, uniform polyhedra composed of regular polygons meeting in identical vertex (geometry), vertices, e ...
, the rhombic dodecahedron is
face-transitive
In geometry, a tessellation of dimension (a plane tiling) or higher, or a polytope of dimension (a polyhedron) or higher, is isohedral or face-transitive if all its faces are the same. More specifically, all faces must be not merely congrue ...
, meaning the
symmetry group
In group theory, the symmetry group of a geometric object is the group of all transformations under which the object is invariant, endowed with the group operation of composition. Such a transformation is an invertible mapping of the ambient ...
of the solid acts
transitively on its set of faces. In elementary terms, this means that for any two faces A and B, there is a
rotation
Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...
or
reflection Reflection or reflexion may refer to:
Science and technology
* Reflection (physics), a common wave phenomenon
** Specular reflection, reflection from a smooth surface
*** Mirror image, a reflection in a mirror or in water
** Signal reflection, in ...
of the solid that leaves it occupying the same region of space while moving face A to face B.
The rhombic dodecahedron can be viewed as the convex hull of the union of the vertices of a cube and an octahedron. The 6 vertices where 4 rhombi meet correspond to the vertices of the
octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...
, while the 8 vertices where 3 rhombi meet correspond to the vertices of the
cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
.
The rhombic dodecahedron is one of the nine
edge-transitive
In geometry, a polytope (for example, a polygon or a polyhedron) or a tiling is isotoxal () or edge-transitive if its symmetries act transitively on its edges. Informally, this means that there is only one type of edge to the object: given t ...
convex polyhedra, the others being the five
Platonic solid
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edges c ...
s, the
cuboctahedron
A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such, it ...
, the
icosidodecahedron
In geometry, an icosidodecahedron is a polyhedron with twenty (''icosi'') triangular faces and twelve (''dodeca'') pentagonal faces. An icosidodecahedron has 30 identical vertices, with two triangles and two pentagons meeting at each, and 60 i ...
, and the
rhombic triacontahedron
In geometry, the rhombic triacontahedron, sometimes simply called the triacontahedron as it is the most common thirty-faced polyhedron, is a convex polyhedron with 30 rhombic faces. It has 60 edges and 32 vertices of two types. It is a Ca ...
.
The rhombic dodecahedron can be used to
tessellate
A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of ...
three-dimensional space: it can be stacked to fill a space, much like
hexagon
In geometry, a hexagon (from Ancient Greek, Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple polygon, simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°.
Regular hexa ...
s fill a plane.
This
polyhedron in a space-filling tessellation can be seen as the
Voronoi tessellation Voronoi or Voronoy is a Slavic masculine surname; its feminine counterpart is Voronaya. It may refer to
*Georgy Voronoy (1868–1908), Russian and Ukrainian mathematician
**Voronoi diagram
**Weighted Voronoi diagram
** Voronoi deformation density
** ...
of the
face-centered cubic lattice
In crystallography, the cubic (or isometric) crystal system is a crystal system where the unit cell is in the shape of a cube. This is one of the most common and simplest shapes found in crystals and minerals.
There are three main varieties o ...
. It is the Brillouin zone of body centered cubic (bcc) crystals. Some minerals such as
garnet
Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives.
All species of garnets possess similar physical properties and crystal forms, but differ in chemical composition. The different s ...
form a rhombic dodecahedral
crystal habit. As
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...
noted in his 1611 book on snowflakes (''Strena seu de Nive Sexangula''),
honey bee
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current co ...
s use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form
honeycomb
A honeycomb is a mass of Triangular prismatic honeycomb#Hexagonal prismatic honeycomb, hexagonal prismatic Beeswax, wax cells built by honey bees in their beehive, nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.
beekeeping, Beekee ...
s from a tessellation of cells each of which is a
hexagonal prism
In geometry, the hexagonal prism is a prism with hexagonal base. Prisms are polyhedrons; this polyhedron has 8 faces, 18 edges, and 12 vertices..
Since it has 8 faces, it is an octahedron. However, the term ''octahedron'' is primarily used ...
capped with half a rhombic dodecahedron. The rhombic dodecahedron also appears in the unit cells of
diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...
and
diamondoid In chemistry, diamondoids are variants of the carbon cage molecule known as adamantane (C10H16), the smallest unit cage structure of the diamond crystal lattice. Diamondoids also known as nanodiamonds or condensed adamantanes may include one or more ...
s. In these cases, four vertices (alternate threefold ones) are absent, but the chemical bonds lie on the remaining edges.
[Dodecahedral Crystal Habit]
. khulsey.com
The graph of the rhombic dodecahedron is
nonhamiltonian.
A rhombic dodecahedron can be
dissected
Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause ...
into 4 obtuse
trigonal trapezohedra
In geometry, a trigonal trapezohedron is a rhombohedron (a polyhedron with six rhombus-shaped faces) in which, additionally, all six faces are congruent. Alternative names for the same shape are the ''trigonal deltohedron'' or ''isohedral rhomboh ...
around its center. These
rhombohedra
In geometry, a rhombohedron (also called a rhombic hexahedron or, inaccurately, a rhomboid) is a three-dimensional figure with six faces which are rhombi. It is a special case of a parallelepiped where all edges are the same length. It can be use ...
are the cells of a
trigonal trapezohedral honeycomb
In geometry, the trigonal trapezohedral honeycomb is a uniform space-filling tessellation (or honeycomb) in Euclidean 3-space. Cells are identical trigonal trapezohedra or rhombohedra. Conway, Burgiel, and Goodman-Strauss call it an oblate cubil ...
. Analogy: a
regular hexagon can be dissected into 3
rhombi
In plane Euclidean geometry, a rhombus (plural rhombi or rhombuses) is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. Another name is equilateral quadrilateral, since equilateral means that all of its sides are equal in length. The ...
around its center. These rhombi are the tiles of a
rhombille
In geometry, the rhombille tiling, also known as tumbling blocks, reversible cubes, or the dice lattice, is a tessellation of identical 60° rhombi on the Euclidean plane. Each rhombus has two 60° and two 120° angles; rhombi with this shape a ...
.
The collections of the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
include a die in the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron dating from
Ptolemaic Egypt. The faces are inscribed with Greek letters representing the numbers 1 through 12: Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ϛ Z Η Θ Ι ΙΑ ΙΒ. The function of the die is unknown.
File:Rhombic dodecahedron 4color.png, Rhombic dodecahedron dissected into 4 rhombohedra
File:Rhombic_dissected_hexagon_3color.svg, Hexagon dissected into 3 rhombi
File:Grenat_pyrope_1.jpg, A garnet
Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives.
All species of garnets possess similar physical properties and crystal forms, but differ in chemical composition. The different s ...
crystal
File:R1-cube.gif, This animation shows the construction of a rhombic dodecahedron from a cube, by inverting the center-face-pyramids of a cube.
Dimensions
Denoting by ''a'' the edge length of a rhombic dodecahedron,
*the
radius
In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...
of its
inscribed sphere
In geometry, the inscribed sphere or insphere of a convex polyhedron is a sphere that is contained within the polyhedron and tangent to each of the polyhedron's faces. It is the largest sphere that is contained wholly within the polyhedron, and i ...
(
tangent
In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. More ...
to each of the rhombic dodecahedron's faces) is
:
(),
*the radius of its
midsphere
In geometry, the midsphere or intersphere of a polyhedron
In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices.
A convex poly ...
is
:
(),
*the radius of the sphere passing through the six order 4 vertices, but not through the eight order 3 vertices, is
:
(),
*the radius of the sphere passing through the eight order 3 vertices is exactly equal to the length of the sides
:
Area and volume
The surface area ''A'' and the volume ''V'' of the rhombic dodecahedron with edge length ''a'' are:
:
:
Orthogonal projections
The ''rhombic dodecahedron'' has four special
orthogonal projection
In linear algebra and functional analysis, a projection is a linear transformation P from a vector space to itself (an endomorphism) such that P\circ P=P. That is, whenever P is applied twice to any vector, it gives the same result as if it wer ...
s along its
axes of symmetry
In mathematics, reflection symmetry, line symmetry, mirror symmetry, or mirror-image symmetry is symmetry with respect to a reflection. That is, a figure which does not change upon undergoing a reflection has reflectional symmetry.
In 2D ther ...
, centered on a face, an edge, and the two types of vertex, threefold and fourfold. The last two correspond to the B
2 and A
2 Coxeter plane
In mathematics, the Coxeter number ''h'' is the order of a Coxeter element of an irreducible Coxeter group. It is named after H.S.M. Coxeter.
Definitions
Note that this article assumes a finite Coxeter group. For infinite Coxeter groups, there ar ...
s.
Cartesian coordinates
The eight vertices where three faces meet at their obtuse angles have
Cartesian coordinates:
:(±1, ±1, ±1)
The coordinates of the six vertices where four faces meet at their acute angles are:
:(±2, 0, 0), (0, ±2, 0) and (0, 0, ±2)
The rhombic dodecahedron can be seen as a degenerate limiting case of a
pyritohedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentago ...
, with permutation of coordinates and with parameter ''h'' = 1.
Topologically equivalent forms
![Rhombic dodecahedron in hexagonal prism](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Rhombic_dodecahedron_in_hexagonal_prism.png)
Parallelohedron
The ''rhombic dodecahedron'' is a
parallelohedron
In geometry, a parallelohedron is a polyhedron that can be translated without rotations in 3-dimensional Euclidean space to fill space with a honeycomb in which all copies of the polyhedron meet face-to-face. There are five types of parallelohedr ...
, a
space-filling polyhedron
In geometry, a space-filling polyhedron is a polyhedron that can be used to fill all of three-dimensional space via translations, rotations and/or reflections, where ''filling'' means that, taken together, all the instances of the polyhedron const ...
,
dodecahedrille, being the dual to the ''tetroctahedrille'' or
half cubic honeycomb, and described by two
Coxeter diagram
Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter, (9 February 1907 – 31 March 2003) was a British and later also Canadian geometer. He is regarded as one of the greatest geometers of the 20th century.
Biography
Coxeter was born in Kensington to ...
s: and . With D
3d symmetry, it can be seen as an
elongated trigonal trapezohedron
In geometry, a trigonal trapezohedron is a rhombohedron (a polyhedron with six rhombus-shaped faces) in which, additionally, all six faces are congruent. Alternative names for the same shape are the ''trigonal deltohedron'' or ''isohedral rhomboh ...
.
Dihedral rhombic dodecahedron
Other symmetry constructions of the rhombic dodecahedron are also space-filling, and as
parallelotopes they are similar to variations of space-filling
truncated octahedra
In geometry, the truncated octahedron is the Archimedean solid that arises from a regular octahedron by removing six pyramids, one at each of the octahedron's vertices. The truncated octahedron has 14 faces (8 regular hexagons and 6 squares), 36 ...
.
[Order in Space: A design source book, Keith Critchlow, p.56–57]
For example, with 4 square faces, and 60-degree rhombic faces, and D
4h dihedral symmetry
In mathematics, a dihedral group is the group of symmetries of a regular polygon, which includes rotations and reflections. Dihedral groups are among the simplest examples of finite groups, and they play an important role in group theory, g ...
, order 16. It can be seen as a
cuboctahedron
A cuboctahedron is a polyhedron with 8 triangular faces and 6 square faces. A cuboctahedron has 12 identical vertices, with 2 triangles and 2 squares meeting at each, and 24 identical edges, each separating a triangle from a square. As such, it ...
with
square pyramids augmented on the top and bottom.
Bilinski dodecahedron
In 1960
Stanko Bilinski discovered a second rhombic dodecahedron with 12 congruent rhombus faces, the
Bilinski dodecahedron
In geometry, the Bilinski dodecahedron is a convex polyhedron with twelve congruent golden rhombus faces. It has the same topology but a different geometry than the face-transitive rhombic dodecahedron. It is a parallelohedron.
History
This s ...
. It has the same topology but different geometry. The rhombic faces in this form have the
golden ratio
In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0,
where the Greek letter phi ( ...
.
Deltoidal dodecahedron
Another topologically equivalent variation, sometimes called a deltoidal dodecahedron or trapezoidal dodecahedron, is
isohedral
In geometry, a tessellation of dimension (a plane tiling) or higher, or a polytope of dimension (a polyhedron) or higher, is isohedral or face-transitive if all its faces are the same. More specifically, all faces must be not merely congruent ...
with
tetrahedral symmetry
150px, A regular tetrahedron, an example of a solid with full tetrahedral symmetry
A regular tetrahedron has 12 rotational (or orientation-preserving) symmetries, and a symmetry order of 24 including transformations that combine a reflection a ...
order 24, distorting rhombic faces into
kites
A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air or lighter-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. ...
(deltoids). It has 8 vertices adjusted in or out in alternate sets of 4, with the limiting case a tetrahedral envelope. Variations can be parametrized by (''a'',''b''), where ''b'' and ''a'' depend on each other such that the tetrahedron defined by the four vertices of a face has volume zero, i.e. is a planar face. (1,1) is the rhombic solution. As (''a'') approaches , (''b'') approaches infinity. Always holds + = 2, with a,b > .
:(±2, 0, 0), (0, ±2, 0), (0, 0, ±2)
:(''a'', ''a'', ''a''), (−''a'', −''a'', ''a''), (−''a'', ''a'', −''a''), (''a'', −''a'', −''a'')
:(−''b'', −''b'', −''b''), (−''b'', ''b'', ''b''), (''b'', −''b'', ''b''), (''b'', ''b'', −''b'')
Related polyhedra
![Spherical_rhombic dodecahedron](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Spherical_rhombic_dodecahedron.png)
When projected onto a sphere (see right), it can be seen that the edges make up
the edges of two tetrahedra arranged in their dual positions (the stella octangula). This trend continues on with the
deltoidal icositetrahedron
In geometry, the deltoidal icositetrahedron (or trapezoidal icositetrahedron, tetragonal icosikaitetrahedron, tetragonal trisoctahedron, strombic icositetrahedron) is a Catalan solid. Its 24 faces are congruent kites. The deltoidal icosit ...
and
deltoidal hexecontahedron for the dual pairings of the other regular polyhedra (alongside the
triangular bipyramid
In geometry, the triangular bipyramid (or dipyramid) is a type of hexahedron, being the first in the infinite set of face-transitive bipyramids. It is the dual of the triangular prism with 6 isosceles triangle faces.
As the name suggests, i ...
if improper tilings are to be considered), giving this shape the alternative systematic name of ''deltoidal dodecahedron''.
This polyhedron is a part of a sequence of
rhombic polyhedra and tilings with
'n'',3Coxeter group
In mathematics, a Coxeter group, named after H. S. M. Coxeter, is an abstract group that admits a formal description in terms of reflections (or kaleidoscopic mirrors). Indeed, the finite Coxeter groups are precisely the finite Euclidean refl ...
symmetry. The cube can be seen as a rhombic hexahedron where the rhombi are squares.
Similarly it relates to the infinite series of tilings with the
s V3.2''n''.3.2''n'', the first in the Euclidean plane, and the rest in the hyperbolic plane.
Stellations
Like many convex polyhedra, the rhombic dodecahedron can be
stellated by extending the faces or edges until they meet to form a new polyhedron. Several such stellations have been described by Dorman Luke.
![R1-stel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/R1-stel.gif)
The first stellation, often simply called the
stellated rhombic dodecahedron
In geometry, the first stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron is a self-intersecting polyhedron with 12 faces, each of which is a non-convex hexagon.
It is a stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron and has the same outer shell and the same visual ...
, is well known. It can be seen as a rhombic dodecahedron with each face augmented by attaching a rhombic-based pyramid to it, with a pyramid height such that the sides lie in the face planes of the neighbouring faces:
Three flattened octahedra compound.png, The first stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron
first_rhombic_dodecahedron_stellation.stl, 3D model of decomposition into 12 pyramids and 4 half-cubes
Luke describes four more stellations: the second and third stellations (expanding outwards), one formed by removing the second from the third, and another by adding the original rhombic dodecahedron back to the previous one.
Related polytopes
The rhombic dodecahedron forms the hull of the vertex-first projection of a
tesseract
In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eig ...
to three dimensions. There are exactly two ways of decomposing a rhombic dodecahedron into four congruent
rhombohedra
In geometry, a rhombohedron (also called a rhombic hexahedron or, inaccurately, a rhomboid) is a three-dimensional figure with six faces which are rhombi. It is a special case of a parallelepiped where all edges are the same length. It can be use ...
, giving eight possible rhombohedra as projections of the tesseracts 8 cubic cells. One set of projective vectors are: ''u''=(1,1,-1,-1), ''v''=(-1,1,-1,1), ''w''=(1,-1,-1,1).
The rhombic dodecahedron forms the maximal cross-section of a
24-cell, and also forms the hull of its vertex-first parallel projection into three dimensions. The rhombic dodecahedron can be decomposed into six congruent (but non-regular)
square dipyramids meeting at a single vertex in the center; these form the images of six pairs of the 24-cell's octahedral cells. The remaining 12 octahedral cells project onto the faces of the rhombic dodecahedron. The non-regularity of these images are due to projective distortion; the facets of the 24-cell are regular octahedra in 4-space.
This decomposition gives an interesting method for constructing the rhombic dodecahedron: cut a
cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. Viewed from a corner it is a hexagon and its net is usually depicted as a cross.
The cube is the only r ...
into six congruent square pyramids, and attach them to the faces of a second cube. The triangular faces of each pair of adjacent pyramids lie on the same plane, and so merge into rhombuses. The 24-cell may also be constructed in an analogous way using two
tesseract
In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eig ...
s.
Practical usage
In spacecraft
reaction wheel layout, a
tetrahedral
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the ...
configuration of four wheels is commonly used. For wheels that perform equally (from a peak torque and max angular momentum standpoint) in both spin directions and across all four wheels, the maximum torque and maximum momentum envelopes for the 3-axis
attitude control
Attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of an aerospace vehicle with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc.
Controlling vehicle ...
system (considering idealized actuators) are given by projecting the
tesseract
In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of eig ...
representing the limits of each wheel's torque or momentum into 3D space via the 3 × 4 matrix of wheel axes; the resulting 3D polyhedron is a rhombic dodecahedron.
Such an arrangement of reaction wheels is not the only possible configuration (a simpler arrangement consists of three wheels mounted to spin about orthogonal axes), but it is advantageous in providing redundancy to mitigate the failure of one of the four wheels (with degraded overall performance available from the remaining three active wheels) and in providing a more convex envelope than a cube, which leads to less agility dependence on axis direction (from an actuator/plant standpoint). Spacecraft mass properties influence overall system momentum and agility, so decreased variance in envelope boundary does not necessarily lead to increased uniformity in preferred axis biases (that is, even with a perfectly distributed performance limit within the actuator subsystem, preferred rotation axes are not necessarily arbitrary at the system level).
See also
*
Dodecahedron
In geometry, a dodecahedron (Greek , from ''dōdeka'' "twelve" + ''hédra'' "base", "seat" or "face") or duodecahedron is any polyhedron with twelve flat faces. The most familiar dodecahedron is the regular dodecahedron with regular pentagon ...
*
Rhombic triacontahedron
In geometry, the rhombic triacontahedron, sometimes simply called the triacontahedron as it is the most common thirty-faced polyhedron, is a convex polyhedron with 30 rhombic faces. It has 60 edges and 32 vertices of two types. It is a Ca ...
*
Truncated rhombic dodecahedron
*
24-cell – 4D analog of rhombic dodecahedron
*
Archimede construction systems
Archimede construction systems are construction techniques achieving rhombic dodecahedral shapes, a space-filling geometry. In America, most of these systems generate building envelopes made up of as little as two panel shapes and sizes, this fe ...
*
Fully truncated rhombic dodecahedron
References
Further reading
* (Section 3-9)
* (The thirteen semiregular convex polyhedra and their duals, Page 19, Rhombic dodecahedron)
''The Symmetries of Things''2008, John H. Conway, Heidi Burgiel, Chaim Goodman-Strass, (Chapter 21, Naming the Archimedean and Catalan polyhedra and tilings, p. 285, Rhombic dodecahedron )
External links
*
– The Encyclopedia of Polyhedra
Computer models
Relating a Rhombic Triacontahedron and a Rhombic DodecahedronRhombic Dodecahedron 5-Compoundan
Rhombic Dodecahedron 5-Compoundby Sándor Kabai,
The Wolfram Demonstrations Project
The Wolfram Demonstrations Project is an organized, open-source collection of small (or medium-size) interactive programs called Demonstrations, which are meant to visually and interactively represent ideas from a range of fields. It is hos ...
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Paper projects
Rhombic Dodecahedron Calendar– make a rhombic dodecahedron calendar without glue
Another Rhombic Dodecahedron Calendar– made by plaiting paper strips
Practical applications
Archimede InstituteExamples of actual housing construction projects using this geometry
{{Polyhedron navigator
Catalan solids
Quasiregular polyhedra
Space-filling polyhedra
Zonohedra
Golden ratio