A Kirigami Approach to Forming a Synthetic Buckliball.
The shape transformation of some biological systems inspires scientists to create sophisticated structures at the nano- and macro- scales. However, to be useful in engineering, the mechanics of governing such a spontaneous, parallel and large deformation must be well understood. In this study, a kirigami approach is used to fold a bilayer planar sheet featuring a specific pattern into a buckliball under a certain thermal stimulus. Importantly, this prescribed spherical object can retract into a much smaller sphere due to constructive buckling caused by radially inward displacement. By minimizing the potential strain energy, we obtain a critical temperature, below which the patterned sheet exhibits identical principal curvatures everywhere in the self-folding procedure and above which buckling occurs. The applicability of the theoretical analysis to the self-folding of sheets with a diversity of patterns is verified by the finite element method.
Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials, School of Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne 3001, Australia.
Sen Lin
Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials, School of Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne 3001, Australia.
Yi Min
YM
Xie
School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Qing
Q
Li
Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials, School of Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne 3001, Australia.
Xiaodong
X
Huang
Centre for Innovative Structures and Materials, School of Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne 3001, Australia.
Shiwei
S
Zhou