WEST LAFAYETTE, IN, United States (UPI) -- A Purdue University engineer has helped create a new mathematical method to design better structures, machines and robots.

Mechanical engineering professor Gordon R. Pennock and Offer Shai, a civil engineer at Tel Aviv University in Israel, have created new theorems that improve the design process by combining the mathematics of both kinematics and statics.

Pennock said the dual theorems could enable civil engineers to design structures that better withstand the forces and 'moments,' or torque, associated with motions such as those caused by earthquakes, perhaps at less expense than today`s designs.

'We are trying to help the designer of structures and the designer of mechanisms to predict potentially bad designs,' he said.

The theorems also offer promise in creating a new class of 'multiple-platform robots' that maintain their strength even when damaged or otherwise compromised.

The research is detailed in a technical paper that will appear in the January issue of the Journal of Mechanical Design