Quantized energy absorption of sandwiched origami ring

Origami cores are increasingly recognized as effective structures for energy absorption in sandwich plates. However, as most origami sandwich cores are made of tessellations of orthotropic unit cells, their free edges may hinder the formation of plastic hinges and reduce energy absorption capacity. To eliminate such free edges, in this work, by trimming the popular Miura-ori unit cells to form ring-shaped loops, we create a new origami sandwich plate with improved energy absorption efficiency. We study the energy absorption characteristics of these origami ring cores through a combination of theory, numerical simulations, and experiments. Both simulations and experiments verify that the origami ring cores possess quantized energy absorption capacity, related to the number of additional plastic hinges derived from strong local buckling of origami creases. We develop a theoretical model that effectively captures the formation of plastic hinges and predicts their absorbed energy. In summary, the origami ring cores present a novel and promising sandwich plate design approach, characterized by quantized energy absorption performance. This innovation holds significant potential for diverse engineering applications across sectors such as the aeronautic and marine industries and infrastructure development.