Large impact of small vertex cuts on the mechanics of origami bellows

For origami structures, perforating or cutting slits along creases is an effective method to define fold lines and alleviate stress concentrations at vertices. In this letter we show numerically and experimentally that for non-rigid-foldable origami bellows (e.g. Miura-ori, Kresling patterns) the introduction of small cut-outs at the vertices results in up to an order of magnitude reduction of the bellows’ stiffness under axial compression. Further, the cut-outs at vertices impact the nonlinear response, e.g. the position and magnitude of a force limit point and presence of bistable configurations. As the origami bellows are not rigid foldable, an axial compression will necessarily result in facet deformations; the small cut-outs at the vertices are found to provide an unexpectedly large stress alleviation, resulting in disproportionate changes in mechanical properties of the bellows. In order to accurately model the mechanics of origami bellows, such manufacturing details must therefore be captured accurately. Lastly, introducing vertex cut-outs can be offered as a novel approach to tailoring the stiffness of non-rigid foldable origami structures.