Parametric design, simulation, fabrication, and test of an Origami-core based sandwich composite material

Sandwich panel structures are widely used for light-weight applications due to their high strength and stiffness to density ratios. They are composed of two main parts: the skins and the core. This paper investigates a Miura-ori structural sandwich core with open cells that can be used as an alternative to the existing honeycomb structures. A fully parametric design approach, starting from drawing to Finite Element Analysis (FEA), is presented to efficiently analyze the effect of different geometries on the resulting structure. The geometric model was built based on the kinematic model, which can represent the folding process of the foldcore using the Matlab script. The obtained coordinates of the vertices of the folding pattern were exported to ANSYS APDL where the surfaces were automatically created and meshed. The created mesh was imported to LS-Dyna where explicit compression analyses were performed to evaluate the compression stiffness and strength of the studied geometries. The developed parametric model aims to find the best configuration for a given application, based on three sets of geometric parameters that define the shape of the Miura Ori folding pattern. Therefore, in the range of the studied geometries, the best parameter combination for specific compression stiffness and specific compression strength was found. To evaluate the performance of the foldcore and to validate the FE model, experimental quasi-static compression tests were undertaken with two kinds of specimens (‘strip’ and “panel”), and the measured force-displacement curves were obtained. The result of the test agrees with that of the FE simulations, with an error of <6.6% in the elastic region.