Multi-Stability of the Extensible Origami Structures

Multi-stable structures and metamaterials with more than two stable states are widely applied in diversified engineering applications. Non-rigid foldable origami patterns have provided an effective way of designing multi-stable structures. But most of them have only two stable states and therefore require a combination of many units to achieve multi-stability. Here, a series of extensible origami structures are proposed with generic multi-stability based on non-rigid wrapping origami. Through a kinematic analysis and experiments, it is demonstrate that a sequential folding among different layers of the structures is created to generate a continuous rigid origami range and several discrete rigid origami states, which consequently leads to the multi-stability of the extensible origami structures. Moreover, the effects of design parameters on the mechanical properties of the structures are investigated by numerical simulation, enabling properties programmability upon specific needs. This study thus paves a new pathway for the development of novel multi-stable origami structures.