A numerical study of the dynamic properties of Miura folded metamaterials

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated the dynamic properties of origami structures composed of Miura unit cells with rigid facets and elastic hinges under three types of excitations: harmonic force, harmonic displacement and impact. Under the simple harmonic force or displacement excitations, different crease stiffness affects the vibration responses of Miura folded metamaterials. The single degree-of-freedom (DOF) models have one resonant peak, after which the vibration amplitude at the response end is lower than that of the excitation end. Increasing the crease stiffness can increase the resonant frequency. The multi-DOF model exhibits multiple resonant peaks under harmonic excitations, where the lowest resonant frequency has the highest peak. Increasing the number of layers can reduce the resonant frequency. When the multi-DOF model is subjected to impact load, the magnitude of the impact wave decays quickly after the impact and finally reaches a steady state with a low average strain magnitude. When the crease stiffness is increased, the propagation of the impact wave becomes faster, whereas the maximum strain magnitude becomes smaller. Introducing different damping coefficient to the crease has no influence on the propagation speed of the impact waves, but can accelerate the decay in the magnitude of the impact wave.