Origami Metamaterials for Tunable Thermal Expansion

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Metamaterials

Background:

• Materials with engineered thermal expansion are crucial for aerospace, optical, energy, and microelectronic applications.
• Existing engineered thermal expansion materials often rely on bi-material 2D or 3D lattices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate that origami metamaterials can be used to design systems with a wide range of thermal expansion coefficients.
• To explore the tunability and nonporous nature of these origami-based thermal expansion materials.

Main Methods:

• Combined experimental and simulation approaches.
• Tuning geometrical parameters of origami structures.
• Adjusting the arrangement of plates and creases.

Main Results:

• Origami metamaterials provide a versatile platform for achieving a broad spectrum of thermal expansion coefficients.
• The proposed structures exhibit in situ tunability.
• The developed structures are nonporous.

Conclusions:

• Origami metamaterials represent a promising new class of materials for engineered thermal expansion.
• The in situ tunability and nonporous characteristics offer advantages over existing technologies.