Fractal-inspired soft deployable structure : A theoretical study

Zechen XIONG, Hang XIAO*, Xi CHEN*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The study of soft deployable structures is an emergent field that is highly correlated with metamaterial design, soft robotics, medical devices, etc. This paper studies a novel two-dimensional (2D) soft deployable structure that has a fractal layout with hierarchically coupled thin walls, which buckles upon actuation and deforms into a "peacock tail"pattern that is over 10 fold its original dimension. Large deflection theory and finite-element (FE) modeling are used to characterize its mechanical performance and to investigate its potential application in multiple fields. Further, 2D FE homogenization is implemented to extend the novel design into an active plane lattice metamaterial, on which parametric studies are carried out to explore its effective stiffness and large strain properties. The results show that, besides excellent deformability, the "peacock tail"soft deployable structure and its lattice metamaterial derivates exhibit intriguing properties such as multi-stiffening, strong anisotropy, zero/negative Poisson's ratio, a unique post-buckling collapse mechanism, etc. Three-dimensional generalization of the fractal compliant system is modeled to elaborate on the practical use of the structures. This paper aims to enrich the spectrum of soft deployable structures, shedding light on the research of novel soft robots, hierarchical structures, and metamaterials.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4834-4841
Number of pages8
JournalSoft Matter
Volume17
Issue number18
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 May 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Funding

This work was supported by the Earth Engineering Center and the Center for Advanced Materials for Energy and Environment at Columbia University.

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