<p style="text-align: justify">Bistable composite laminates have been widely studied for applications in morphing structures due to their ability to exhibit different shapes and distinct degrees of stiffness about each stable state. These laminates self-lock in each stable configuration, implying that no energy is needed to maintain the functionally designed morphed shapes, thus making them suitable for practical applications. However, laminates with low aspect ratios (Length/Width) suffer from decreased bending stiffness and easily lose bistability. The present work addresses this challenge by introducing parallel slits along the width of the laminate, thereby relieving the deformation and enabling natural curving of the laminates. We demonstrated this by developing a numerical model of a two-section bistable composite laminate with clamped boundary condition. The design of the slits is chosen by conducting stress analysis on the laminate and using the Tsai-Wu failure criterion to assess failure at the critical locations. The effect of slits on the bending stiffness and curvature of both the stable shapes is studied in detail. Finally, a parametric study is conducted on the laminate with slits to determine the maximum width that preserves bistability. These results are compared with those for a laminate without slits to illustrate the utility of adding slits.</p>

Design of Bistable Laminates With Low Aspect Ratio

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/SMASIS/SMASIS2021/volume/85499

ASME 2021 Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS2021)

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