Patterning nonisometric origami in nematic elastomer sheets
Abstract
Nematic elastomers dramatically change their shape in response to diverse stimuli including light and heat. In this paper, we provide a systematic framework for the design of complex three dimensional shapes through the actuation of heterogeneously patterned nematic elastomer sheets. These sheets are composed of \textit{nonisometric origami} building blocks which, when appropriately linked together, can actuate into a diverse array of three dimensional faceted shapes. We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that: 1) the nonisometric origami building blocks actuate in the predicted manner, 2) the integration of multiple building blocks leads to complex multi-stable, yet predictable, shapes, 3) we can bias the actuation experimentally to obtain a desired complex shape amongst the multi-stable shapes. We then show that this experimentally realized functionality enables a rich possible design landscape for actuation using nematic elastomers. We highlight this landscape through theoretical examples, which utilize large arrays of these building blocks to realize a desired three dimensional origami shape. In combination, these results amount to an engineering design principle, which we hope will provide a template for the application of nematic elastomers to emerging technologies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1712.04585,
title = {Patterning nonisometric origami in nematic elastomer sheets},
author = {Paul Plucinsky and Benjamin A. Kowalski and Timothy J. White and Kaushik Bhattacharya},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.04585},
year = {2018}
}