Active origami-inspired designs, which incorporate active materials such as electroactive polymers (EAPs) and magnetoactive elastomers (MAEs) into self-folding structures, have shown good promise in engineering applications. In my research, finite element analysis (FEA) models are developed for several bending and folding configurations that incorporate a combination of active and passive material layers, such as unimorph benders based on multilayer EAPs, EAP-actuated notched unimorph folding configurations, and a multi-field actuated bimorph configuration. Constitutive relations are developed for both electrostrictive and magnetoactive materials to model the coupled behaviors explicitly. Shell elements are adopted for their capacity of modeling thin films, relatively low computational cost, and ability to model the intrinsic coupled behaviors in the active materials under consideration. Through quantitative comparisons, simulation results show good agreement with experimental data.
Current research plan includes developing a hierarchical design optimization framework for complicated multi-field actuated configurations, which involves multiple modeling strategies such as analytical modeling, rigid dynamic modeling and FEA, and genetic optimization algorithm.
The deformed shapes of the finger configuration from FEA results are compared with experiments.[1]
Deformed shape comparison between experiments and FEA results for MAE-based actuation of the morph configuration.[2]
The performance space, where each point represents a feasible design. Three sample designs are pictured for illustration purposes.[1]
Team Members
Dr. Mary Frecker
Dr. Zoubeida Ounaies
Wei Zhang
Dr. Saad Ahmed
Jonathan Hong
Sarah Masters
Project Sponsor
National Science Foundation Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Grant (NSF-EFRI)
Recent Publications
[1] Zhang, W., Hong, J., Ounaies, Z., Frecker, M. I., 2018, Design optimization of a soft gripper actuated using the electrostrictive PVDF-based terpolymer, SMASIS 2018-7966
[2] Zhang, W., Ahmed, S., Masters, S., Ounaies, Z., & Frecker, M. I. (2017). Finite element analysis of electroactive polymer and magnetoactive elastomer based actuation for origami folding. Smart Materials and Structures.
[3] Zhang, W., Erol, A., Ahmed, S., Masters, S., von Lockette, P., Ounaies, Z., & Frecker, M. (2017). Finite Element Analysis of Electroactive and Magnetoactive Coupled Behaviors in Multi-Field Origami Structures. ASME Paper No. SMASIS2017-3850.