Rigidity analysis and mechanical properties of programmable origami tubes

The article presents the rigidity analysis and mechanical properties evaluation of ‘Flip-Flop’ typed interleaved origami tubes. This origami configuration is composed of two tubes arranged in an orthogonal manner. The rigidity of the basic unit is judged by using the loop-closure equation and dual quaternion methods while the corresponding compression performance is studied with the numerical simulation. A parametric analysis is performed to assess the effects of geometrical parameters on their compression performance. The parameters are thickness-to-length ratio (t/l) and angles (α, β) of the basic unit. The parametric analysis outcomes reveal that the interleaved origami tube has good programmability. Generally, when |α-β| is larger, the compression energy absorption characteristics in the X/Y-direction of the basic unit are greatly improved, while the decrease of angles α and β is conducive to improving the structural bearing capacity and compression energy absorption characteristics in the Z-direction. Fixing α while changing β has a greater effect on reducing the normalized mean stress ratio although, for a fixed β, a variation in α has no obvious contribution. Thus, highlighting the importance of the variation of β in influencing the compressive performance of the interleaved origami tubes as reference for future research.