Design and analysis of a conical origami tube (COT) composed of quadrilateral unit cells

Abstract

Abstract Kresling origami is a topic that is constantly being researched, especially when it comes to the cylindrical mechanisms made up of special quadrilateral units. It’s also fascinating that the conical mechanisms based on the Kresling pattern are gaining more attention lately. However, designing conical mechanisms with stable behavior and solving the stress concentration in crease areas for practical engineering applications remains less researched. Therefore, this study considers quadrilateral unit cells as the research object, designs a conical origami tube (COT), and establishes a theoretical model with five variables to systematically investigate the COT. Based on this, the design domain related to the design variables is proposed, and the COT is analyzed in three cases. We further explored the influence of η (conical degree) on the COT. In addition, this study implements a cutting design on each crease vertex to reduce the impact of stress concentration on the nonlinear response through finite element shell models and uniaxial compression experiments. The findings of this study reveal that the setting of η and the crease-cutting design have a remarkable impact on the mechanical properties and stability behavior.