ECCOMAS 2024

Analytical Dynamic Behavior of a Meter-Scale Adaptive Origami Pill Bug Structure

  • Sychterz, Ann (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

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Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, has found application in various fields, including engineering, through the development of origami-enabled structures. The adaptive behavior of these structures has the potential to revolutionize the design of large-scale deployable structures for the built environment [1]. The integration of biomimetics, the study of biological systems for the development of new technologies, can further enhance the design of origami-enabled structures. This work presents modeling of a meter-scale prototype of the origami pill bug, a novel design inspired by the morphological characteristics of pill bugs. In order to gain insights into the deployment dynamics of origami structures, this study employs a combination of a finite element model of the structure and a quasi-static form-finding method for the general structural configuration. The objective of this work is to characterize the analytical dynamic behavior of a meter-scale origami pill bug structure and identify any modeling uncertainties that exist in the experimental prototype [2]. Identification of these uncertainties could potentially improve our understanding of the deployment dynamics and contribute towards the development of origami-enabled structures for civil engineering applications.