Origami and Kirigami-Inspired Sandwich Panels for UAM Primary Structural Applications
摘要
Foldcore sandwich panels (FSPs) provide highly tailorable structural and multifunctional performance over legacy sandwich panels made with honeycomb or foam cores. In FSP manufacturing, skins and foldcore are made from any flat sheets of unitary or hybrid materials, folded into a desired pattern. Two common folding mechanisms include origami and kirigami: origami core is involved with folding only, while kirigami core is associated with a strategic combination of cutting and folding. Material and core geometry can be determined to satisfy the applications’ performance requirements. Overall, origami- or kirigami-inspired FSPs have the potential to revolutionize the ways to design and build aerospace structures operating under harsh conditions. Limited works exist on the design of FSPs for practical aerospace structures. This work will investigate the high-velocity impact resistance of FSCs with various core geometries and evaluate their potential for future urban air mobility (UAM) primary structure applications. A total of six origami- and kirigami-based foldcore geometries are studied. Effects of foldcores on FSP’s impact damage are numerically investigated using a recently developed in-house composite damage model. The primary objectives of the present work are to (1) characterize structural characteristics and corresponding damage morphologies of FSPs subjected to hyper-velocity impacts (>2 km/s) and (2) identify critical foldcore design parameters. This work is a baseline study to provide an in-depth understanding of novel aerospace sandwich panels, particularly for lightweight UAM primary structure applications, offering excellent impact mitigation performance.