Actuation surface on a curved crease origami metamaterial

Abstract

Curved crease origami (CCO) is a newer, interesting field in origami mechanisms. The surfaces on CCO can be bent to initiate folding, thus allowing for the use of planar bending actuation. In this work, the use of more or less of the available actuation surface of CCO is explored. This is done by heating a bilayer material made of paper and polypropylene tape to bend the origami surfaces. The use of more or less of this active material is explored, through measuring the folding displacement of the bilayer CCO metamaterial as a result of heating. Furthermore, the stiffness for folding up the varying origami patterns was measured. Additionally both experiments were modelled in an isogeometric analysis. The work shows that using more of the available surface on CCO for actuation, has a positive effect on the folding displacement. For straight crease origami, this effect is shown to occur when applying the active material in the fold lines. For CCO, the positive effect on the folding displacement is found when applying more active material between the fold lines.