Collaborative Research: Uncovering the Dynamics and Functionality of Origami Structures and Materials

折纸是一门古老的艺术，可以将纸张折叠成装饰形状和几何图形。在过去的几十年中，它发展成为许多工程和架构应用程序的设计框架。例子包括可展开的空间结构、动力建筑、自动折叠机器人、手术设备和先进材料。到目前为止，折纸被认为是一个静态的过程。人们通常关注它的设计和几何形状，或使折叠自动进行的内部驱动机制。该奖项支持一个合作项目，该项目将研究折纸折叠的基本动态特征。特别是，这项研究将探索如何利用折纸的非凡特性来应用于诸如低频隔振、可恢复冲击吸收和脉冲驱动等应用。此外，这项研究将生产设计工具，可以生成复杂的折叠图案，并分配适合各种动态性能要求的材料属性。该项目的成果将成为下一代空中、海上和陆地车辆、智能机器和机器人或智能基础设施的基石，增强其功能性、安全性和可持续性。因此，这些发现将推动航空航天、民用、机械、机器人和许多其他行业的发展。教育和扩大参与计划将侧重于不同层次的学生学习和社区推广，以及通过将未被充分代表的少数群体纳入科学和工程领域的研究活动来增强多样性。这项研究将首次严格研究折纸折叠的动态特征，并开发其相应的工程潜力。初步研究发现，具有普通折痕图案的折纸通过折叠表现出许多吸引人的特性，如零/负刚度、依赖压力的多稳定性和分段刚度跳跃。这种令人惊讶的丰富特性和相应的动力响应将基于等效的桁架模型进行详细的分析，该模型将连续的折纸结构转换为有限自由度系统。桁架框架模型也将成为综合工具的基础，该工具结合了折痕扰动和优化，因此折纸可以根据规定的动态性能进行定制。这个综合工具将架起目前分离的研究分支的桥梁：折纸设计/折叠的数学理论和基于折纸的应用工程。总体而言，折纸动力学的新建模、分析和合成工具将带来重大的智力飞跃，并为未来许多相关的研究和开发工作奠定坚实的基础。

Origami is the ancient art of folding paper into decorative shapes and geometries. Over the last several decades, it evolved and became a design framework for many engineering and architecture applications. Examples include deployable space structures, kinetic buildings, self-folding robots, surgery devices, and advanced materials. Origami folding so far has been considered as a static process. People typically focus on its design and geometry, or internal actuation mechanisms that makes the folding autonomous. This award supports a collaborative project that will investigate the fundamental dynamic characteristics of origami folding. In particular, the research will explore how to harness the extraordinary properties of origami for applications like vibration isolation at low frequency, recoverable impact absorption, and impulsive actuation. Furthermore, the research will produce design tools that can generate sophisticated folding patterns and assign material properties that are suitable for a wide variety of dynamic performance requirements. The results of this project will become the building blocks for the next generation of air, marine, and land vehicles, intelligent machines and robots, or smart infrastructures, enhancing their functionality, safety and sustainability. The findings will thus advance the aerospace, civil, mechanical, robotics and many other industries. Education and broadening participation plans will focus on student learning and community outreach at various levels and on the enhancement diversity through inclusion in the research activities of members of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering.This research will, for the first time, rigorously investigate the dynamic characteristics of origami folding and develop its corresponding engineering potentials. Preliminary studies have discovered that origami with generic crease patterns exhibits many attractive properties via folding, such as zero/negative stiffness, pressure dependent multi-stability, and piece-wise stiffness jump. Such surprisingly rich properties and the corresponding dynamic responses will be analyzed in detail based on an equivalent truss-frame model, which transforms the continuous origami structure into a finite degree of freedom system. The truss frame model would also become the basis of a comprehensive synthesis tool that incorporates crease perturbation and optimization, so that the origami can be customized for prescribed dynamic performances. This synthesis tool will bridge the currently separated branches of studies: the mathematical theories of origami design/folding and the engineering of origami based applications. Overall, the new modeling, analysis and synthesis tools for origami dynamics will create a significant intellectual leap and build a strong foundation for many future related research and development efforts.