Automating Bi-Stable Auxetic Patterns for Polyhedral Surface

Bi-stable auxetic structures, a novel class of architected material systems that can transform bi-axially between two stable states, offers unique research interest for designing a deployable stable structural system. The switching behavior we discuss here relies on rotations around skewed hinges at vertex rotating connectors. Different arrangements of skewing hinges lead to different local curvatures. This paper proposes a computational approach to design the self-interlocking pattern of a bi-stable auxetic system that can be switched between flat and desired curved states. We build an algorithm which takes a target synclastic polyhedral surface as input to generate the geometrical pattern with skewing hinges. Finally, we materialized prototypes to validate our proposed structures and to exhibit potential applications.