2024/10/03 by Yan Feng, Feng, Yanxin, Andrew Wu +9
Engineering · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Control and Dynamics of Mobile Robots #FOS: Physical sciences #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Vibration and Dynamic Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2410.02174
openalex publication_date 2024/10/03 · openalex created_date 2024/10/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Origami principles are used to create strong, lightweight structures with complex mechanical response. However, identifying the fundamental physical principles that determine a sheet's behavior remains a challenge. We introduce a new analytic theory in which commonly studied origami sheets fall into distinct topological classes that predict sharply varying mechanical behavior, including effective stiffness and smoothness of mechanical response under external loads. Origami sheets with negative Poisson's ratios, such as the Miura ori, have conventional, smooth mechanical response amenable to continuum-based approaches. In contrast, positive Poisson's ratio, as in the Eggbox ori, generates a topological transition to lines of doubly degenerate zero modes that lead to dramatically softer structures with uneven, complex patterns of spatial response. These patterns interact in complicated ways with origami boundary conditions and source terms, leading to rich physical phenomena in experimentally accessible systems. This approach highlights topological mechanics, with deep connections to topologically protected quantum-mechanical systems, as a design principle for controlling the mechanical response of thin, complex sheets.