Study of a lightweight self-adaptation multi-morphing skin inspired by mechanics of epidermis cell walls producing the leaf’s unique smooth shape

Abstract

Inspired by mechanics of epidermis cell walls in the forming process of the unique smooth shape of a leaf, the constitutive model of an out-of-plane compressive sandwich panel consisting of outer skins and a biomimetic Isosceles Trapezoid Corrugated Lattice Cellular (bio-ITCLC) core is built by theory and experiment to provide guidance for meeting structural requirements of a skin with the self-adaptation multi-morphing application. This above constitutive model shows that by decreasing the skin’s tangential stiffness and simultaneously increasing the bio-ITCLC core’s vertical stiffness can use less weight to decouple the mutual suppression between high tangential and low normal deformations of the skin. Besides, one proposed optimal design for a self-adaptation multi-morphing skin is that the skin comprising of a flexible matrix modified by curvilinear fibres is supported by the bio-ITCLC core with self-adjusting anisotropy stiffness according to new circumstances. And this dynamic self-adjusting anisotropy stiffness follows such a rule that the transverse stiffness along the y-axis or vertical stiffness along the z-axis is increased while the transverse stiffness along the x-axis is decreased.