Programming Kirigami Through Fibre Steering

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Abstract

In this work, it is demonstrated that kirigami deformation behaviour can be controlled by tailoring the anisotropic material that is used to create the kirigami structure. The ultimate goal is to find a relationship between the material pattern and the deformation behaviour of the kirigami structure. An anisotropic thermoplastic polyurethane carbon fiber material was steered by using the fused filament fabrication method. Kirigami samples were manufactured and tested with varying geometry and material orientation. Each tested sample corresponded to a finite element (FE) model in Abaqus/CAE with identical features. Results show that the FE model is able to accurately simulate the impact of material orientation on the deformation behaviour of the kirigami structure. The FE model is validated by comparing the kirigami tip deflection and -shape to experimental data. Results show that the shape of fibre steered kirigami can be estimated by following the thin plate buckling theory.