Dynamics of a bistable Miura-origami structure. Fang, H., Li, S., Ji, H., & Wang, K., W. Physical Review E, 95(5):052211, 5, 2017.
Dynamics of a bistable Miura-origami structure [pdf]Paper  Dynamics of a bistable Miura-origami structure [link]Website  abstract   bibtex   
Origami-inspired structures and materials have shown extraordinary properties and performances originating from the intricate geometries of folding. However, current state of the art studies have mostly focused on static and quasistatic characteristics. This research performs a comprehensive experimental and analytical study on the dynamics of origami folding through investigating a stacked Miura-Ori (SMO) structurewith intrinsic bistability. We fabricate and experimentally investigated a bistable SMOprototype with rigid facets and flexible crease lines. Under harmonic base excitation, the SMO exhibits both intrawell and interwell oscillations. Spectrum analyses reveal that the dominant nonlinearities of SMOare quadratic and cubic, which generate rich dynamics including subharmonic and chaotic oscillations. The identified nonlinearities indicate that a third-order polynomial can be employed to approximate the measured force-displacement relationship. Such an approximation is validated via numerical study by qualitatively reproducing the phenomena observed in the experiments. The dynamic characteristics of the bistable SMO resemble those of a Helmholtz-Duffing oscillator (HDO); this suggests the possibility of applying the established tools and insights of HDO to predict origami dynamics.We also show that the bistability ofSMOcan be programmedwithin a large design space via tailoring the crease stiffness and initial stress-free configurations. The results of this research offer a wealth of fundamental insights into the dynamics of origami folding, and provide a solid foundation for developing foldable and deployable structures and materials with embedded dynamic functionalities.

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