Axisymmetric blockfold origami: a non-flat-foldable Miura variant with self-locking mechanisms and enhanced stiffness

Abstract

Origami foldcores, especially the blockfold cores, have emerged as promising components of high-performance sandwich composites. Inspired by the blockfold origami, we propose the axisymmetric blockfold origami (ABO), which is composed of both rectangular and trapezoidal panels. The ABO inherits the non-flat-foldability of the blockfold origami, and furthermore, displays self-locking mechanisms and enhanced stiffness. The geometry and folding kinematics of the ABO are formulated with respect to the geometric parameters and the folding angle of the assembly. The mathematical conditions are derived for the existence of self-locking mechanisms. We perform compression test simulations to demonstrate enhanced stiffness and increased load-bearing capacity. We find that the existence of rectangular panels not only dominates the non-flat-foldability of the ABO, but also contributes to the enhancement of the stiffness. Our results suggest the potential applications of the ABO for building load-bearing structures with rotational symmetry. Moreover, we discuss the prospects of designing tightly assembled multi-layered origami structures with prestress induced by the mismatch of successive layers to enlighten future research.