Magneto-origami structures: engineering multi-stability and dynamics via magnetic-elastic coupling

Origami provides a flexible platform for constructing three-dimensional multi-stable mechanical metamaterials and structures. While possessing many interesting features originating from folding, the development of multi-stable origami structures is faced with tremendous demands for acquiring tunability and adaptability. Through an integration of origami folding with magnets, this research proposes a novel approach to synthesize and harness multi-stable magneto-origami structures. Based on the stacked Miura-ori and the Kresling-ori structures, we reveal that the embedded magnets could effectively tune the structure's potential energy landscapes, which includes not only altering the position and the depth of the potential wells but essentially eliminating the intrinsic potential wells or generating new potential wells. Such magnet-induced evolutions of potential energy landscapes would accordingly change the origami structure's stability profiles and the constitutive force-displacement relations. Based on proof-of-concept prototypes with permeant magnets, the theoretically predicted effects of magnets are verified. The exploration is also extended to the dynamics realm. Numerical studies suggest that the incorporated magnets not only could translate the critical frequencies for achieving certain dynamical behaviors but also fundamentally adjust the frequency-amplitude relationship. Overall, this study shows that the proposed approach would provide a novel means to control the stability profile as well as the mechanics and dynamic characteristics of origami structures, and thus, inspire new innovations in designing adaptive mechanical metamaterials and structures.