Department of Mechanical Engineering Fall Seminar Series: Philip R. Buskohl

Description

Philip R. Buskohl, a research mechanical engineer in the Functional Materials Division at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, will give a talk titled "Origami Concepts for Sensing, Actuation and Logic" for the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The first 50 people can view the talk in-person; otherwise, please register to view the talk over Zoom.

Abstract:

Movement and shape change are key enablers for living systems to sense, assess and respond to environmental stimuli. For example, actuating mechanisms are utilized in natural systems for diverse operations, such as arms and legs for locomotion, skin wrinkling for camouflage, or multistable snapping to catch prey. Mapping these behaviors to synthetic systems is highly desirable for applications such as morphing aircraft and agile robotics, however robust physical reconfiguration methods are needed to program and control the interaction of the physical shape with its environment. Origami, the art of paper folding, presents a strategy to address this challenge, by converting complex 2D to 3D shape changes into a series of folding operations. In addition, multistable origami mechanisms can also be realized through the combined tuning of the fold topology and the stiffness mismatch between stretch, bend and fold deformation modes in the structure. In this seminar, we will investigate how origami-based shape change and multistability can serve as potential mechanisms for emulating sensing, actuation and logic in stimuli-responsive structures. Examples will include the analysis of an origami frequency selective surface for tunable blockage of electromagnetic waves, applying topology optimization to design origami actuators with specific symmetries, and the leveraging of a bistable origami pattern to demonstrate mechanologic. Collectively, the results highlight the versatile properties origami-based structures can embody and the potential opportunity space for foldable mechanisms.