A Phase Diagram-Based Stability Design Method for a Symmetrical Origami Waterbomb Base

Abstract The symmetrical origami waterbomb (WB) base shows promising applications in engineering due to its considerable mechanical behaviors. As a common phenomenon in actual origami, the stability performance of the WB base has attracted increasing attention. However, there are few studies on graphical design for the stability of WB bases. Based on the phase diagram of the intrinsic parameters, this paper proposes an intuitive and synthesized stability design method for the WB base. First, the basic principles are demonstrated using the Euler–Lagrange functional equation. In addition, the details of the method are illustrated by two typical WB bases with a given stiffness ratio. Second, according to the proposed design method, case studies are presented, and the stability behaviors are evaluated by the analytical method and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. Finally, the prototypes of the case study are designed, and a measurement experiment of the stable states is carried out. Both FEA simulation and the experimental result demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.