Modeling and Displacement Analysis of Origami Spring Considering Collision and Deformation of Components

Abstract

The Origami Spring is one of the convertible origamis and its macroscopic motion is often regarded as a single Degree-of-Freedom (DoF) motion while in theory, its DoF is three DoF mechanism. In this paper, a new displacement analysis was introduced to study the behavior of Origami Spring. The Origami Spring was modeled as a link mechanism which includes rigid and compliant components. In particular, folding was represented by a revolute joint, and deformation which is assumed to have an effect on the structural stability was represented by a string. With this model, the displacement analysis is carried out. As the result, it was revealed that a single DoF contributed to translational motion and the other two DoF have a role of adjustment to avoid collision between components in a narrow range. In addition, strain energy based on deformation of string was introduced in order to investigate the macroscopic motion. As the result, its effectiveness was revealed by comparison of theoretical and experimental motions.