Mechanical Modeling and Deployment Analysis of Bistable Origami Flexible Arm

doi:10.3901/JME.2025.21.227

Abstract

Abstract: Designs inspired by origami provide new solutions to various challenges in spatial technology. Flexible arms based on origami principles are attracting increasing attention due to their lightweight, compact size, and high adaptability. This research proposes a modular, expandable origami-based flexible arm structure with bistable characteristics, which effectively enhances the arm’s axial deployment stiffness. A geometric model is developed by analyzing the constraint relationships between the creases in the flexible arm’s unit cell structure. By introducing virtual creases within the deformation plane, the elastic deformation of a single plane is represented as a rotational motion between two planes. Torsional stiffness is incorporated at both regular and virtual creases, allowing for the calculation of the elastic potential energy of the arm’s unit cell structure, which leads to the development of a mechanical model. Mechanical analysis results demonstrate that the origami-based flexible arm exhibits bistable characteristics closely related to the bending-to-folding stiffness ratio of the arm material. Three origami-based flexible arm models of varying lengths are designed and fabricated, followed by functional verification experiments. The results demonstrate that the flexible arms exhibit a high deployment-to-contraction ratio and stable deployment performance. Based on stretching test results, the mechanical model is refined, enabling the prediction of deployment driving forces for origami flexible arms of any diameters.

Key words: oigami flexible arm, virtual crease, bistability, mechanical properties

CLC Number:

TG156

LIU Mingli, SHI Chuang, GUO Hongwei, LIU Rongqiang. Mechanical Modeling and Deployment Analysis of Bistable Origami Flexible Arm[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2025, 61(21): 227-236.

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