On the synthesis of a bio-inspired dual-cellular fluidic flexible matrix composite adaptive structure based on a non-dimensional dynamics model

Abstract

A recent study investigated the dynamic characteristics of an adaptive structure concept featuring dual fluidic flexible matrix composite (F2MC) cells inspired by the configuration of plant cells and cell walls. This novel bio-inspired system consists of two F2MC cells with different fiber angles connected through internal fluid circuits. It was discovered that the dual F2MC cellular structure can be characterized as a two degree of freedom damped mass–spring oscillator, and can be utilized as a vibration absorber or an enhanced actuator under different operation conditions. These results demonstrated that the concept is promising and further investigations are needed to develop methodologies for synthesizing future multi-cellular F2MC structural systems. While interesting, the previous study focused on specific case studies and analysis. That is, the outcome did not provide insight that could be generalized, or tools for synthesizing a multiple F2MC cellular structure. This paper attempts to address this important issue by developing a non-dimensional dynamic model, which reveals good physical insights as well as identifying crucial constitutive parameters for F2MC cellular design. Working with these parameters, rather than physical variables, can greatly simplify the mathematics involved in the study. A synthesis tool is then developed for the dual-cellular structure, and it is found that for each set of achievable target poles and zero, there exist multiple F2MC cellular designs, forming a design space. The presented physical insights and synthesis tool for the dual-cellular structure will be the building blocks for future investigation on cellular structures with a larger number of cells.