Compression performance evaluation of a novel origami-lattice metamaterial

The thin-walled lattice metamaterials are usually applied into the energy absorption, and the low-weight and high-bearing components. In this paper, a novel kind of open-section origami units with single degree of freedom (DOF) motion from flat foldability to closed tube are firstly proposed and verified based on the symmetry design method. On this base, a novel origami-lattice metamaterial is firstly proposed through stacking multiple symmetry open-section origami cells. Furthermore, the influence of different geometry parameters and compression directions on the energy absorption ability and the deformation mechanism are analyzed in detail. The relative density of the proposed origami-lattice metamaterials will increase with the dihedral angles and wall thickness. Testing results show that the initial peak force, specific energy absorption of the proposed lattice metamaterials in z-direction and y-direction compression could improve by 397.18% and 138.69%, 303.84% and 82.77% with the increase of the wall thickness from 1mm to 2mm. With the increase from 90° to 135°, the initial peak force, EA value, and SEA value in the z-direction could improve by 79.34%, 55.54% and 56.93%. When the z-direction layers increase from the 4 to 6, the initial peak force, EA value, and SEA value in the y-direction could improve 78.10%, 204.72% and 101.82%. Significantly, the proposed lattice metamaterials have the better low-weight and high-bearing and energy absorption capacity, which is promising for the architecture field.