Modular chiral origami metamaterials.
Tuo Zhao, Xiangxin Dang, Konstantinos Manos, Shixi Zang, Jyotirmoy Mandal, Minjie Chen, Glaucio H. Paulino.
Metamaterials with multimodal deformation mechanisms resemble machines, especially when endowed with autonomous functionality. A representative architected assembly, with tunable chirality, converts linear motion into rotation. Such chiral metamaterials with a machine-like dual modality have potential use in areas such as wave manipulation, optical activity related to circular polarization, and chiral active fluids. However, the dual motions are essentially coupled and cannot be independently controlled. Moreover, they are restricted to small deformation, i.e., strain≤2%, which limits their applications. Here we establish modular chiral metamaterials, consisting of auxetic planar tessellations and origami-inspired columnar arrays, with decoupled actuation. Under single-degree-of-freedom actuation, the assembly twists between zero and 90◦, contracts in-plane up to 25%, and shrinks out-of-plane more than 50%. By means of experiments and simulations, we show that the deformation of the assembly involves in plane twist and contraction dominated by the rotating-square tessellations, and out-of plane shrinkage dominated by the tubular Kresling origami arrays. Moreover, we demonstrate two distinct actuation conditions: either twist with free translation or linear displacement with free rotation. Our metamaterial is built upon a highly modular assembly, which enables reprogrammable instability, local chirality control, tunable loading capacity, and scalability. Our concept provides routes toward multimodal, multistable, and reprogrammable machines, with applications in robotic transformers, thermoregulation, mechanical memories in hysteresis loops, non-commutative state transition, and plug-and-play functional assemblies for energy absorption and information encryption.
View Full Text (PDF)
View Supporting Information (PDF)
Direct Link to Journal
